EXCLUSIVE – Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo strongly supports his questionable resolution not to impose isolation periods on young people unvaccinated against measles after an outbreak in his state in February, saying that erring on the side of individual overselection is a key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic. .
“Which honestly breaks my heart, but I hope other people recognize it. . . is that, unfortunately, the same people who were willing to crash the car into the ground and take everyone with them with COVID haven’t learned any lessons,” Ladapo said. in an exclusive statement. Interview with the Washington Examiner.
Ladapo has drawn extensive public criticism after the outbreak of a cluster of six measles cases at Manatee Bay Elementary School in the Fort Lauderdale area.
On Feb. 20, Ladapo issued a statement to parents in the district, deferring to parents and guardians to make the decision about whether or not to send unvaccinated children to school.
Ladapo’s guidance contradicts general Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rules related to measles outbreaks, which state that unvaccinated people remain isolated for up to 21 days after possible contact with a measles patient due to to the likelihood of transmission and to the possibility that the unvaccinated patient will have more symptoms. In this case, Ladapo said the generic rules “seemed absolutely excessive. “
Ladapo said that given that 97% of the school’s students had won at least one dose of the MMR vaccine, the resolution to delegate to parents “is much more humane, much more convenient and much more sustainable. “
“In my opinion, this is an absolutely moderate decision, given the cases and what we know about the rate of immunity in the community, the effectiveness of the vaccine, and the burden related to isolating and keeping young people out of school for so long. Ladapo said.
Although the federal recommendation for isolation is 21 days, Ladapo noted that other countries have looser restrictions depending upon local conditions, including the inability of parents to provide child care for children other than public schools.
The World Health Organization’s national consulting lines, cited through Ladapo in his interview with the Washington Examiner, state that “pragmatic decisions advise national policies, following a risk-benefit assessment. “
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who represents the Fort Lauderdale domain in Congress, called for Ladapo’s removal over his handling of the incident, saying his policies constitute a “stark contrast” to “bipartisan public opinion. ” . .
“Ladapo politicizes public health and peddles risky rhetoric about ‘freedom of choice’ that fuels vaccine hesitancy and downplays the need for vaccination in public and private health,” Wasserman Schultz said at a news conference on Tuesday. last week.
Leana Wen, a professor of public health at George Washington University and former president of Planned Parenthood, called Ladapo’s policy “outrageous” and an “avoidable tragedy” in a Washington Post op-ed, saying the containment measures are essential to control a public aptitude crisis.
In contrast to Ladapo’s policy, Wen praised the 2019 decision of New York Commissioner of Health Oxiris Barbot to force unvaccinated people to take the MMR vaccine or pay $1,000 during a measles outbreak. “As draconian as these steps might have seemed, they were taken only because it was necessary [to] stop an extremely contagious and highly devastating disease from resurging,” Wen said.
Ladapo told the Washington Examiner that he did not make his policy decision lightly, saying that containing an outbreak must be weighed with other political and policy goals, such as learning loss from school isolation.
“It’s absolutely a fact that measles is very contagious, but the idea that the only thing that matters is reducing the risk of contagion to as low as you possibly can, even if that involves taking draconian measures, that, unfortunately, is what we saw during the pandemic,” Ladapo said.
By early March, 41 cases of measles had been reported in 15 states and New York City. Other countries that have recently experienced measles outbreaks include Canada and the United Kingdom.
Measles is one of the most contagious known infectious diseases, with 9 in 10 people who do not have either vaccine or natural immunity likely to become infected after exposure.
Children under five years old are most likely to develop severe cases of measles, which can cause permanent neurological damage, as well as vision or hearing loss. One in 20 children infected with measles can develop pneumonia, which is the leading cause of death from the disease.
The measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine is very effective at preventing infection, and those who receive at least one dose of the MMR vaccine achieve 93% immunity, according to the CDC. Immunity against measles reaches 97% with the 3 doses.
Following CDC and WHO recommendations, the Florida Department of Health provided information and literature to parents on the risks involved with measles infections and provided pop-up vaccination clinics in the school district to encourage vaccination.
Ladapo said few families chose to vaccinate their children in clinics, most likely because “they felt more comfortable getting the measles vaccine and changing their minds about the decision they had already made to refuse this specific vaccine. “
According to the CDC, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the MMR vaccine, which was first developed in 1971, has very small risks of complications.
“We allowed [vaccine refusal] in Florida, which is a reality,” Ladapo said. “We allow parents to make decisions about what they put in their children’s bodies. »
When asked about the growing problem of vaccine hesitancy around the world, Ladapo said moderate skepticism about public health recommendations is “very sensible, rational and wise” in light of the lack of transparency of the public health leaders, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration.
Ladapo earned his joint MD/Ph.D. degree in health policy from Harvard University in 2008 with a research focus on behavioral economic strategies for cardiovascular disease prevention prior to being selected by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for surgeon general in September 2021.
Ladapo has sparked significant controversy by contradicting the CDC and other public fitness agencies and professional teams over the epidemiology and policies of COVID-19.
In November 2020, Ladapo wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal defending the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, even in randomized studies showing their effectiveness. As surgeon general, Ladapo has called for a pause in the use of mRNA vaccine generation due to considerations about contamination of genetic material.
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According to Ladapo, other people who were skeptical of public fitness recommendations since the pandemic “felt like they were being lied to or manipulated and that the data they were receiving and the recommendations they were receiving were not trustworthy. “
“I’m sure this contributes to more people asking recommendations in general, adding vaccination recommendations,” Ladapo said.