After party-line vote, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s confirmation heads to Senate floor

Joseph Ladapo doubles down on banning physicians from offering gender-affirming care to minors

In an early evening meeting, the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee voted along partisan lines to recommend the confirmation of Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.

The vote clears the way for the likely final confirmation of Ladapo, hailed as a “superstar” by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who brought in the doctor last fall from the University of California Los Angeles.

Nevertheless, Ladapo has become a lightning rod for controversy, mostly due to his skepticism over masks and vaccines.

During the confirmation process, Democratic committee members asked Ladapo a broad array of questions, from the efficacy of vaccines and masks to whether he is vaccinated to whether he believes school-aged children should get vaccinated.

Similar to a previous committee meeting, Ladapo’s testimony offered rambling answers about the efficacy of masks and vaccines in the fight against the spread of COVID-19.

Throughout the hearing, Sen. Dennis Baxley repeatedly asked members to stop asking Ladapo medical questions. Instead, he invited members to pose questions that “bring some type of closure” to the confirmation process.

Baxley, at one point, interrupted Sen. Tina Polsky, who was asking Ladapo to explain what she considered to be inconsistent testimony regarding vaccine effectiveness. She said he suggested vaccines helped reduce hospitalizations, but followed up later by saying he didn’t think they were effective.

“Do you have a question?” Baxley said to Polsky as she talked, reminding him of earlier testimony. 

“Sen. Baxley, please,” Polsky retorted. “I am trying to do so. This is as important as anything I have ever done in this body. We have the Surgeon General here saying vaccines don’t work, and I want to be very clear on the record right now.”

Polsky, who has breast cancer, made national headlines by kicking Ladapo out of her Senate office last year after asking him to put on a mask, explaining she had a serious medical condition. Polsky didn’t tell Ladapo it was cancer but asked him and the two Department of Health staff who accompanied him to her office several times to mask up.

Each time she made the request, Polsky said Ladapo attempted to negotiate instead. She eventually told him and his staff to leave.

On Tuesday, Polsky asked Ladapo why he chose to equivocate on vaccination efficacy.

“I do not equivocate about any scientific issues,” Ladapo replied. “If I don’t know something, I say I don’t know it, but I do not equivocate.”

Sen. Randolph Bracy, another Democrat on the committee, also commented on Baxley’s handling of the meeting.

“I don’t think it’s OK to rush this through,” he said. “You are the chairman, but I think this is important enough to be able to ask the necessary questions.”

Bracy thought Ladapo’s policy positions were “dangerous.” But he said Ladapo’s treatment of Polsky was the driving reason behind his no vote Tuesday night. 

“How would that have hurt you to do that out of respect?” said the Orlando Democrat. “I think we are losing respect in our politics, and I think you and your boss are emboldening people to have a lack of respect in our politics and how we talk to one another.”

Bracy added: “I think that promotes a dangerous, ugly kind of politics that we are starting to see in our state. Where people don’t think they can extend courtesy. How would that have hurt you?”

Pensacola Republican Sen. Doug Broxson called Ladapo “a man of character and prominence,” thanking him for “enduring” questions.

“Frankly, it appears to me that we’ve gone through hazing and badgering of this witness who has given in my estimation incredible response and incredible patience to very suspicious questions,” Broxson said.

Republicans backed Ladapo even after the recent revelation that his former UCLA supervisor was highly critical of the physician. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement background check quoted the former supervisor, who said Ladapo’s “published opinions were contrary to the best scientific evidence available about the COVID-19 epidemic and caused a large number of his research and clinical colleagues and his subordinates who felt that his opinions violated the Hippocratic oath that physicians do no harm.”

When asked whether he would recommend Ladapo for the state Surgeon General position, the one-time supervisor told investigators no.

“In my opinion, the people of Florida would be better served by a Surgeon General who grounds his policy decisions and recommendations in the best scientific evidence rather than opinions,” the FDLE background report says.

Earlier this month, Ladapo appeared before the Senate Health Policy Committee. Democratic members of the panel peppered him with an array of questions, including whether he thought masks and vaccines were effective in the fight against COVID-19 and his thoughts on former Surgeon General Scott Rivkees‘ efforts to stop the spread of hepatitis A.

Rivkees, who also worked for DeSantis, said the key to reducing the spread of hepatitis A was vaccination, education, sanitation and tracking, an initiative he dubbed VEST.

Ladapo’s reluctance to answer questions from Democrats straightforwardly prompted the Democratic committee members to storm out of the hearing. In their absence, Republicans moved to approve the nomination.

Senate President Wilton Simpson, who criticized Ladapo for his treatment of Polsky, tried to downplay the controversy. When asked about Ladapo’s refusal to provide clear answers to questions, Simpson joked to reporters the Surgeon General didn’t have the same manners as someone who went to the University of Florida.

When asked about the FDLE background check days later at a media availability with reporters, Simpson said, “I suspect that professor did not go to the University of Florida either,” and quickly pivoted to another question.