According to the CDC, measles activity in America is “currently low” with a total of 151 cases reported by 22 jurisdictions so far this year.
But you wouldn’t know it by reading mainstream media headlines about the skyrocketing rates of measles with millions at risk.
Florida, in particular, has received a disproportionate amount of negative media attention with disparaging headlines such as:
“Florida is swamped by disease outbreaks as quackery replaces science” and “Florida: Come for the Sunshine, Leave With the Measles” and “Measles? So On-brand for Florida’s Descent Into the 1950s.”
Apparently, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is to blame for the outbreaks.
After several measles cases were reported in a Florida school, Ladapo allowed parents to choose whether they wanted their healthy children to attend school during that time, even if they were unvaccinated against the disease.
In a letter to parents, Ladapo wrote “Due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, DOH is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.”
The advice sparked outrage because it contradicted the CDC’s official advice which recommendations a 21-day ‘quarantine’ for individuals who have not been vaccinated against measles or do not have prior immunity.
Ladapo was labelled “anti-vax,” accused of being the Governor’s “lap dog” making maverick proclamations that would pose “an unacceptable danger to the health of Florida residents” and fuelling the growing distrust in vaccines across the board.
Criticism of Ladapo escalated after he appeared on a podcast in late 2023 and called the covid-19 vaccines “the Anti-Christ of all products.”
And when the FDA failed to adequately address his concerns that billions of DNA fragments found in the vaccines might lead to cancer, he called for the halt of their use in Florida.
Recently, I spoke with Ladapo about his reaction to the measles outbreaks, covid-19 vaccines and the diminishing trust in public health. His calm, candid and authentic approach shone through.
*The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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DEMASI: Dr Ladapo, thanks for your time today.
LADAPO: You too Dr Demasi. Hey, can you call me Joe? Then I can call you Maryanne.
DEMASI: No problem, Joe. You’ve been blamed for the measles outbreaks across America. What do you say about that?
LADAPO: Oh, it’s completely political Maryanne. When I tell people that, all in all, we had maybe 10 or 11 cases of measles, they’re shocked because based on the news articles, you’d think that we had thousands of cases of measles. I just saw some over-the-top, completely ridiculous titles to news articles about this. Ultimately, I guess what really ticked off people in the media was that we said that parents could make the decision about whether their healthy kids could go to school. We weren’t suggesting kids who were sick with measles go to school, it was only if they were not sick.
DEMASI: But you said unvaccinated kids could return to school if their parents wanted then to…that’s what caused the upset…
LADAPO: You know, vaccination rates at the school were very high, so there was a lot of protection against measles already. Therefore, you let the parents choose. Giving parents the choice is what people really couldn’t handle.
DEMASI: And it was because your advice contradicted CDC’s advice to quarantine unvaccinated kids for 21-days…
LADAPO: Yes, it did go against CDC guidelines, but it's in sync with Florida guidelines, which is, that if a kid is healthy, they can go to school.
DEMASI: Why was this all so triggering?
LADAPO: Honestly, that’s what I struggle with. I do hear people say that if a kid is unvaccinated and there is a measles outbreak, then they should stay home. But keeping healthy kids home from school puts an enormous burden on the families. It's obviously bad for the kids. It's bad for their education, it’s bad for their mental health and wellbeing. Those lessons were apparently not learned during the pandemic. We're in this state of mind where people reflexively want to isolate healthy people. It was rampant during the pandemic and caused tremendous harm. Those policies never really took a foothold here in Florida, but in other states, it was very common for whole classrooms to go home just because one kid had covid.
DEMASI: That’s the difficulty in public health, weighing up the pros and cons…
LADAPO: Right, you have to make a judgement call. There was a high rate of vaccination against measles already in the school and a kid who maybe hasn’t had a measles vaccine should be allowed to go to school if the parents have all the information about their options. Measles is very contagious and the chances their kid will catch it is high if they’re exposed to it. But that’s a choice the parents should make, it’s not for public health officials to make for families. That’s my opinion.
DEMASI: You said there were only 10 or 11 cases. It seems as if public health officials like frightening people… Do you think there is some disease-mongering happening?
LADAPO: Oh, definitely. Absolutely there is. Measles certainly can be serious and sometimes you can get very sick. But by and large, historically, it's not something that was abnormal to catch. Many recover but nowadays it has been transformed into something that signals the end of days. It’s just not realistic. Again, it’s not to say that measles cannot be serious, because it can be, but for most healthy kids, they’re going to get over it. That’s just the reality. All the pandemonium about casting it as if its the plague or Ebola, well, no, it's not. Unfortunately, some public health officials, at least the ones that make it on TV, have a warped vision of health. They equate things like vaccines with health, but vaccines are not health. Health is health - when you're sleeping, you're eating and you're exercising. It’s not a medical product. Medical products can help people, but they’re not the definition of health. I think ‘disease mongering’ is equating medications and vaccines with health – it’s actually a sick way of thinking about health and wellness.
DEMASI: Do you think people's trust in vaccines more broadly has been damaged since COVID?
LADAPO: Oh, it definitely has. And frankly, I think it will only get worse. I, myself, have learned so much about some of the clinical trials that were used to approve other vaccines. Ever since seeing how corrupt the scientific approach to the safety and efficacy of mRNA covid-19 vaccines has been, more people are looking at other vaccines now. And it's really appropriate to do that because vaccines do not have the same type of critical scrutiny as other medications. Just for example, one of the things that has come out during the pandemic is the work by Dr Christine Stabell Benn. It’s very clear that some vaccines can be very effective against the condition that they're targeted against, but have other effects on people's health outside of the condition.
DEMASI: That’s right, her work found that vaccines can have ‘off-target’ effects that are unintended.
LADAPO: Right, and you never really hear any discussion about things like that. But that's clearly part of a critical analysis of any medication you're putting into someone's body. And some people just want to exempt vaccines from that type of scrutiny…I think that’s hogwash.
DEMASI: You know about the discovery of DNA fragments contaminating the mRNA vaccines. What has happened since you called for the halt of their use in Florida?
LADAPO: The FDA wrote us back, I think, in December last year with a long letter where they didn't answer directly our question of whether DNA integration studies had been performed with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines…which I interpreted to mean that those studies had not been done. And that was last correspondence from them. Since then, we've seen FDA and CDC officials continue to prop up the COVID-19 vaccines.
DEMASI: What’s your reaction to how the FDA handled the safety concerns about the COVID vaccines?
LADAPO: Honestly, it makes me sick to my stomach, It's so sad. And there really should be much stiffer consequences for when people knowingly choose to prioritise the reputation of an institution above the health and wellbeing of human beings. The FDA and the CDC, they just care about their own reputations.
DEMASI: You commented that covid shots were the work of the devil. I can’t imagine that went down well….
LADAPO: They are, Maryanne. Covid-19 mRNA vaccines are evil products…
DEMASI: It’s extraordinary to hear a physician in public office say that. Vaccines are considered the “holy grail’ of medicine…is it just covid-19 vaccines that concern you?
LADAPO: The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, yes, and it's all tied together with the inhumane lockdowns, the harms to kids, the separation of people, the inability to say goodbye to people you love, who were dying. Give me a break -- saying goodbye to people over zoom when they're dying, that's bullsh*t. All that stuff where they were firing nurses and doctors or firemen who didn't want to take the vaccine. It has just been a series of anti-human and…well, evil behaviours. And the fact that many people weren't conscious of how inhumane their actions were was part of the hypnotic environment that was created to allow those behaviours to occur and to be sustained. The fact that so many people have been injured by the vaccines, and people have been misled into taking them – people who were we're very low risk and manipulated - the whole thing's evil, it's totally all evil.
DEMASI: What drives you to say these things out loud?
LADAPO: I personally had an early life experience, a very traumatic experience, that affected me profoundly. As a little kid, I was molested by my babysitter when I was probably four years old or something like that. And I thought I was fine and normal. A few decades later, I fell in love with my wife and the effects of that traumatic experience came out like a volcano that erupted, and really presented the most challenging personal experience I've ever had in terms of dealing with it. That experience created intense fear and an inability of being able to connect with other people – almost a disassociation from reality. But I fell in love – accidently – we met on a plane, she was living in California, I was in Boston at graduate school at the time and we end up continuing to talk on the phone. I had no idea I fell in love with her on the phone from our conversations. Eventually, I ended up working with a guy named Christopher Maher, who's a former Navy SEAL, and he helped me really overcome the effects of my early traumatic experience and that changed everything for me. Now, it's easy to recognise truth, but also to say it out loud.
DEMASI: Thank you for sharing that story Joe. It sounds like your experience also instilled a strong sense of social justice?
LADAPO: I would call it love and appreciation for who we are as humans. So, when there are forces that undermine people's sovereignty, that undermine people's ability for autonomy, to make decisions for themselves with full information, that will rub me the wrong way. So, I would actually say it's that, yeah.
DEMASI: We’ve lost trust in public health. How do we get it back?
LADAPO: I think it's going to be a long road. Unfortunately, we still have leaders who are not forthcoming about information and risks. I think you need new leadership, and whether it's head of CDC or head of FDA, they're just clearly incapable of being honest with Americans, they are way more interested in preserving the reputation of institutions. You're never going to be able to really earn people's trust back, when you have people that don't prioritise people's health. So, yeah, we need new leadership.
DEMASI: All right. I think I'll leave it there, Joe. It's been lovely speaking with you.
LADAPO: Cool, Maryanne. Great to speak with you too.
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