TAMPA — Florida’s top health official blasted the manufacturer’s of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and wants the federal government to do more to help those he described as the “vaccine injured.”
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo described the vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna as “not fit for human use.” He also called on the federal government and the National Institute of Health to expand its research on long COVID to include people who had experienced adverse effects from either COVID-19 shots or boosters.
“We need to study this better,” he said. “We need to fund physicians who are caring for these patients clinically and who are doing scientific work in this area.”
Ladapo also praised Health and Humans Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision in May to remove the COVID-19 vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention immunization schedule for pregnant women and healthy children.
He did not mention that the federal government tweaked that guidance days later making the vaccine available for children six months and up in consultation with their pediatrician.
Ladapo recommended children not get immunized in 2022. At least four experts whose work he cited as the basis for the guidance said that Ladapo took their research out of context and accused him of “cherry picking” information.
He was also criticized by experts for guidance he made in 2024 advising doctors and other medical providers against giving updated mRNA vaccines.
In his comments made at the Bureau of Public Health Laboratories building in Tampa Thursday, Ladapo said that it was a tragedy that the vaccine was designed too quickly and rolled out without sufficient testing.
“When was the last time that you had a vaccine that literally almost every single person knows someone who’s had a bad reaction?” Ladapo said.
Other speakers at the event included Pierre Cory, whose certifications in critical care medicine, pulmonary disease and internal medicine were revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 2024. He had publicly promoted the use of ivermectin, an antiparasitic medication, as a treatment for COVID-19.
Roughly 13.7 billion COVID-19 shots have been administered worldwide, according to World Health Organization data, although not all were the mRNA vaccine. More than 80% of U.S. residents have received at least one shot.
A 2024 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reviewed claims and studies that linked 19 health issues to the mRNA vaccines.
It concluded that they can cause myocarditis or inflammation of the heart muscle and inflammation of muscle at the point of injection.
It did not find evidence supporting a direct link between the vaccines and infertility, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Bell’s palsy, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or myocardial infarction, more commonly known as a heart attack.
In 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis requested that the Florida Supreme Court assemble a grand jury it to investigate wrongdoing linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
The grand jury did not find any evidence to support criminal charges but its report was critical of the relationship between the Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer and Moderna.
“There are profound and serious issues involving the process of vaccine development and safety surveillance in the United States,” the report stated.
