ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

Sadly, no.

Further proof that Hah-vahd - the birthing place of the can-do New Frontiersmen who, because they were Hah-vahd grads, died thinking they were still right to have jumped into Vietnam. - should be knocked down, brick by fucking brick.

(This San Francisco State grad has always enjoyed firing talentless Harvard grad thought-they-were-screenwriters for being talentless morons - particularly the one guy who left the office crying after being called out for his talenlessness for the first time in his life.)

Not only does he have a Harvard MD, he has a Harvard Ph.D (there’s a reason why that degree is called “Piled Higher and Deeper”).

This is further proof that possession of a college degree only means you were good at regurgitating what pleased the professor.

Read on...

Yesterday, Florida's new surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, questioned the usefulness of COVID-19 vaccines during a press conference in which he argued people would face more health repercussions by losing their jobs because they refused to comply with requirements and said it was his considered medical opinion the individuals should “trust your own knowledge” about whether or not to get vaccinated.

Yes. Harvard Medical School graduate. Senior researcher at UCLA Medical School. Dumb fucking moron. Ol’ Massa Governor Insanity chose his new houseboy well.

Let’s recall that more than 730,000 people have died after contracting the disease, many of whom died because they refused to get vaccinated.

According to footage from WFLA, the NBC News station in Tampa, “Doctor” Ladapo invoked anecdotal examples and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories to argue against the vaccines, such as”

"I mean you hear these stories of people telling you what's been happening in their lives, of nurses and pregnant women who are being forced to, you know, to sort of put something in their bodies that we don't know all there is to know about yet, no matter what people on TV tell you."

On the efficacy of vaccines, Ladapo added, "So sure they reduce the likelihood of transmission, and even that is sort of questionable depending on how far out you go, but they're not preventing it."

He said science does not back up vaccine mandates at work, "in fact the science says something that is completely opposite."

Ladapo argued firing people who won't get vaccinated is bad for their health. "So when you take away people's jobs like some of these brave people who've decided to stand with their beliefs and commitments, and take the risk, when you take away these people's jobs it's bad for health."

For his de facto first day on the job - back on September 23 - Ladapo signed an emergency rule that repealed required quarantines for schoolchildren who were exposed to Covid-19. “I’m really happy to be working with the governor who has a similar vision about how to think about weighing the costs and benefits with managing this pandemic.”

Governor Insanity tapped “Doctor” Ladapo, a University of California, Los Angeles, health policy researcher and physician, in September to replace the previous state surgeon general, Dr. Scott Rivkees - who, no surprise, differed from Governor Insanity’s position on the pandemic.

Ladapro has also raised eyebrows for his support of hydroxychloroquine (Surprise, surprise - NOT).

Daniel Salmon, the executive director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said he was amazed that Ladapo’s area of expertise is in cardiovascular disease and yet he felt compelled to question treatment for emerging infectious diseases or the Covid-19 vaccine. “I certainly know that I am not an expert in cardiovascular disease - despite having a PhD and being a Professor at Johns Hopkins - and would know better than pretending to be an expert in cardiovascular disease.,”

Covid-19 has killed more than 53,000 people since the first infections were reported in Florida in March 2020, and more than 3.5 million people have been infected. At least 10,000 of those deaths occurred over the summer as the state was battered by the highly contagious Delta variant, and infections soared in August as schoolchildren returned for fall semester.

As usual, one can also “follow the money” with this: Ladapo will also serve as a professor at the University of Florida Medical School, netting him a total salary of $512,000. His salary at UCLA was $319,168, according to a University of California database.

Ladapo has written at least 12 columns for the Wall Street Journal, many about Covid-19 vaccines, in which he has cast doubt on whether Covid-related restrictions like face masks and lockdowns are needed. He was among 20 doctors who signed a citizen petition on June 1 urging the FDA not to grant full approval of any of the Covid-19 vaccines until they’ve gone through two years of testing.

The petition stated: “We are concerned that the premature licensure of a COVID-19 vaccine can seriously undermine public confidence in regulatory authorities, particularly if long-term safety issues were to emerge following licensure.”

Ladapo co-authored an analysis published last September that determined hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating Covid-19, and reports of heart problems related to the drug were rare. Less than three months before Ladapo’s analysis was published, the FDA determined hydroxychloroquine wasn’t safe because it led people to have heart problems. Also, an FDA study determined the medicine wasn’t effective against the virus.

Despite the rejection from the FDA, Ladapo joined a news conference with an ultra-right wing group called America's Frontline Doctors on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court to promote hydroxychloroquine. The group also raised several key points that Ladapo consistently brought up in his Wall Street Journal columns, including how the negative aspects of lockdowns outweighed the impact of the virus itself.

Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, a Republican ally of DeSantis, said Ladapo’s credentials easily qualify him to become the next surgeon general. Just because Ladapo’s stance on fighting the pandemic contradicts recommendations from Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, doesn’t make him unqualified, he said. "Anytime someone, at this stature, disagrees with Dr. Fauci, of course, they say that now he's not qualified. He seems to be very highly qualified, and certainly has got the credentials to make a great surgeon general.”

State Sen. Aaron Bean (R-Fernandina Beach), chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, said most senators would agree with Ladapo’s approach toward allowing people to make their own health decisions without government influence. “We have to go to other countries where they don't make decisions for themselves, and here, we make our own decisions and we want to keep it that way. I think the majority of people in the Senate particularly would say the same thing.”

Did I mention the majority of people in the Florida State Senate are Republicans?

Not everyone is happy with the good doctor. The UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine has since removed Ladapo's name and biography from its websites. An internet archive search shows his name disappeared after the Sept. 23 news conference.

Democrats in the state legislature continue to think objective facts are important. State Sen. Janet Cruz (D-Tampa) said Ladapo’s Ivy league credentials may deceive residents into trusting the politically-charged pandemic strategy waged by DeSantis. She said her husband, who is a kidney doctor at Tampa General Hospital, was shocked by Ladapo’s agnostic take on using the Covid-19 vaccine and wearing face masks to control spread. “He's astounded and really quite disappointed that someone with such a pedigree from a medical perspective is buying into these ridiculous conspiracy theories. It's really disappointing.”

U.S. Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.), whose 5th congressional district encompasses mainly majority Black areas between Jacksonville and Tallahassee, said he was deeply concerned with what Ladapo’s confirmation would mean for boosting vaccination rates among hesitant communities. Ladapo, who is Black, told reporters the Covid-19 vaccine wasn’t nearly as effective as everyone had hoped. This undermined several months of work by Lawson and a consortium of black church pastors who sought to close a racial disparity gap among vaccinated Floridians. “I was really surprised, because it didn't seem to be science-based,.When you have some African Americans who still talk about the Tuskegee experiment, it really doesn't help that much for something like that to come out.”

As of about mid-September, 32 percent of African-Americans in Florida were fully vaccinated, which is less than the 49 percent of vaccinated whites, according to a weekly report by the Florida Department of Health.

“We’re trying to save lives in this state, now all over the country,” Lawson said. “And it's in the hands of a new surgeon general who comes out and says they don’t need masks, they don’t need this or that or whatever.”

“A Confederacy of Dunces” indeed. Further proof you absolutely need to know the political beliefs of your medical professionals, lest you allow a fucking moron to touch the important stuff.

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