TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Dr. Joseph Ladapo is a step closer to becoming Florida's surgeon general following a recommendation by a state Senate committee Wednesday, but not all lawmakers gave a glowing endorsement.
Senate Democrats sitting on the committee abstained from voting on the controversial nominee following questions about what they view as his lack of experience navigating pandemics and disputed positions on medical subjects.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Ladapo's appointment in September 2021, citing his "remarkable academic and medical career" as a professor at the University of Florida and, previously, an associate professor at the University of California. Wednesday's hearing before the Senate Health Policy Committee was the first of two hearings before his nomination comes to the full Senate, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Republican support on the committee was enough to move Ladapo to the next step in the process.
"Quite frankly, we have an extreme amount of respect for this process...however, we don't feel that we're getting answers met," State Democratic Leader Lauren Book said before she and her colleagues walked out.
Ladapo came to Florida from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he was an associate professor and cared for hospitalized patients.
DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw tweeted the committee's recommendation was "great news for Florida."
A day after Ladapo was appointed surgeon general, he rewrote the state's COVID-19 rules in schools to give parents more of a say over masks and quarantine measures. Ladapo, too, gave parents the choice to send their children to in-person classes after being exposed to someone who tests positive for COVID-19 so long as they don't show symptoms.
Medical experts challenged the change.
"The virus can spread long before anyone is symptomatic," said University of South Florida associate professor Dr. Jill Roberts in an earlier interview. "When you have children that cannot be vaccinated [at the time, children could not yet receive a vaccine], we are the ones that are supposed to protect them and put all the things in place that are possible."
Ladapo in 2020 appeared in a since-deleted video because of COVID-19 misinformation by a group called America's Frontline Doctors, promoting the debunked claims that the drug hydroxychloroquine could provide a cure for the virus, the USA Today reports.
Democrats complained Ladapo was not giving clear answers to their questions about his specific experience in public health or how the state should combat the ongoing COVID pandemic. He would not give a "yes" or "no" answer to Book's questions about whether vaccines and masking could bring about its end.
Ladapo responded, speaking as a scientist, he said that his answers required an analysis of data. Eventually, he concluded vaccinations do limit hospitalizations and deaths while masks were not effective at preventing infections.
"What I hear is arrogance and polite avoidance..." said Sen. Janet Cruz, a Democrat from Tampa.
