TAMPA, Fla. — Florida's top health official is calling for all COVID-19 vaccines to be pulled citing safety concerns.
The FDA is now pushing back on his safety concerns, and some doctors in the Bay area say he's spreading misinformation.
"I see no data to support any problems," Dr. Jill Roberts who specializes in Molecular Epidemiology and Emerging Diseases at USF Health said.
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo called for an end to the use of mRNA vaccines Wednesday morning in a post on X, citing safety assessments and the discovery of billions of DNA fragments in each dose of the Pfizer and Moderna shots.
In his full announcement posted on the Florida Department of Health's website, Ladapo said:
"The FDA’s response does not provide data or evidence that the DNA integration assessments they recommended themselves have been performed. Instead, they pointed to genotoxicity studies – which are inadequate assessments for DNA integration risk. In addition, they obfuscated the difference between the SV40 promoter/enhancer and SV40 proteins, two elements that are distinct.
DNA integration poses a unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome, including the risk that DNA integrated into sperm or egg gametes could be passed onto offspring of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients. If the risks of DNA integration have not been assessed for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, these vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings."
Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed the Surgeon General's announcement on the campaign trail, saying Florida is the first state to call for the pulling of the vaccines.
"He's been following the different types of adverse reactions from this thing, and he's now called for it. Florida is the first state to say, that this latest iteration of these shots should not have been approved by the FDA and he's actually called for them to pull it off the market. He's put this stuff out there and actually tried to bring accountability for this," DeSantis said.
But the FDA is firing back saying the administration stands firmly behind their decision and approval of both mRNA vaccines and Bay area doctors say the shots are effective and safe.
"The idea that somehow these small pieces of DNA that are, you know, less than a 1,000th of the total nucleic acid in the vaccine, could possibly integrate into your genome and cause cancer. This is kind of almost fantasyland type of ideas," Dr. Michael Teng, who specializes in allergy, immunology, and infectious disease at USF Health said.
Plus they say misinformation from the state's top health official hurts the community during a time when COVID-19 cases are on the rise again.
"I'm really disappointed we're getting highly politicized advice. He continues to attack these mRNA vaccines, for reasons that are really pretty much focused on at this point, hypothetical risks," Dr. Thomas Unnasch, who specializes in molecular medicine at USF Health said.
That's why doctors are still encouraging people to get the shot in order to lower their risk of infection and curb the rise in cases once again.
"We're estimating right now it's possible that about one in three people are either infected right now or will become infected in the next couple of weeks. Every time we have a disagreement if you will, between what the public health data shows and what maybe some of our elected officials may say, it erodes our trust in the public health. That's difficult, that's really difficult. We do want people to be able to be healthy, and happy and safe," Dr. Roberts said.