To the Editor:

Having been an attorney (writer, and law school faculty member) over a nearly 50-year career representing physicians, hospitals and others in the healthcare chain, I was truly appalled at the state’s Republicans in Tallahassee getting on the bandwagon to support Joseph Ladapo as the state’s next surgeon general. But from what I saw of him and how he testified at a recent state senate committee hearing as part of his confirmation process, he is nothing but a charlatan in a white lab coat.
Protecting the health of Floridians – certainly Villagers, particularly when it comes to COVID-19 and its Omicron variant – must presently be not only of the highest priority for the state’s top doctor, but one who is responsible, well grounded in known science and medicine, and otherwise well-qualified. Such a physician is not one incapable of answering, as Ladapo was multiple times before that committee, with a simple yes or no, whether or not vaccines have been, or are, effective in fending off COVID-19, particularly its Omicron variant. Again, having represented physicians for nearly five decades, I know when a doctor is avoiding honesty and then not complying with the Hippocratic Oath of to do no harm. Ladapo failed miserably in this regard in that portion of his hearing I observed. Equally problematic is his continuing to support monoclonal antibody treatments that the CDC (and the companies, Eli Lilly and Regeneron, themselves) have recently said are ineffective. As we know, the state has shut down such treatment centers based on the CDC’s findings though DeSantis vows to fight the decision.
Then there is Ladapo’s unsubstantiated claims of having treated COVID-19 patients while at UCLA before coming to Florida. Health care is a right for all citizens, including for all Floridians and that includes Villagers, but this right and the state’s citizenry are not to be sacrificial lambs for a surgeon general that apparently only wants to advance the political career of the state’s governor, incidentally, a “favorite” of this community’s Developer. Ladapo would thus be a clear and present danger, if confirmed, so the public needs to speak up against him before it is too late.

Miles Zaremski
Village of Dunedin