C&B Talk with Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo

BUCK: We are now joined by the surgeon general of the state of Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo. Doctor, thanks for being here.

DR. LADAPO: Yes. Thank you for having me on.

BUCK: So, Florida — this was the story just a couple days ago — will be the first state to officially recommend against the covid-19 vaccines for healthy children. Dr. Ladapo, tell us why, how you came to this conclusion, and what you’ve seen in response from the medical community.

DR. LADAPO: Yeah, this is one that all of our grandmothers can understand. I mean, it’s very simple. It’s based in (garbled cell) basically tantrums, people who are just unhappy with what we said, but not putting much thought into the reasons why we said it. I mean, it’s very simple. You know, we have a country where most healthy children have already had covid-19; they have immunity. There’s no data that says that these kids benefit from the vaccines.

CLAY: Dr. Ladapo, this is Clay Travis. Appreciate you joining us and the work that you’re doing as surgeon general down in Florida. So I’ve got a 14-year-old, an 11-year-old, and a 7-year-old. I looked at all the data. I think they probably have had covid since my wife and I both had it. But the data doesn’t reflect that they should get it based on what I have done, my own research, and based on the doctors that I’ve talked to. I believe you have children as well.

One of the reasons why I like to not only get the opinion of officials in their official capacity, you’re also a parent. I’m assuming you’re making the same choice for your kids as you would be advising other people. I think that’s significant because a lot of people don’t trust you unless you say, “Hey, I’ve got kids, too, and I’m telling them to do the same thing,” because there is an innate understanding that every parent out there is looking out for their kids the best.

DR. LADAPO: Right.

CLAY: So I’m curious. I believe you have young kids as well. What are you doing with those kids, and how would you consider this not only as a doctor but also as a parent?

DR. LADAPO: Oh, yeah. Well, hey, we’re in a similar club. Your kids are a little older. I’ve got three wonderful boys 8, 5, and 3 years old. For all the money in the world, I would never give them one of these vaccines. I think it’s even… It’s just silly. I mean, I’m sure they’ve had it. My kids have been out and about since the beginning of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, and while limited benefit or no benefit — basically unknown benefit — is one part of the equation, the other part of the equation is the risk.

People like to pretend like we know everything there is to know. That’s a flat lie. We will continue to learn things about the safety of these vaccines just as we have over the past several months. Unfortunately so many scientists and doctors are pretending that what’s happening really is that they’ve decided their position, and their position is that every kid should get this, and then they just sort of pick and choose which data point they want to use to support that. And it’s completely ridiculous. So, all the money in the world, I’ve never given some new product to my kids, particularly when they’re incredibly low risk and almost certainly wouldn’t benefit.

CLAY: Well, I appreciate you telling us that. I’m curious. You know that were you at UCLA when all of this began — I believe so, based on what I have been reading — and that the way that California was shutting down was very frustrating to you and your wife in terms of having those three young boys and wanting them to be able to be out and about running around. They got a lot of energy, as anybody who’s had three young kids knows. What has your experience been, not only as a doctor, but just as a parent moving from California to now live in Florida?

DR. LADAPO: Oh, it’s been terrific. It’s been fantastic. You know, the schools shut down in L.A., and so we had our kids home. We did the best we could with the remote learning, which really hurt the poor kids the most, so it hurt the black kids and kids who are I hope so, and they did it willfully. They kept the schools shut. We did the best we could for our kids.

When the next school year started and they said, “Okay, the kids can come back but we’re gonna test you twice a week and force you to wear masks,” my wife and I were like (laughing), “Not in this universe. So we didn’t reenroll them, and fortunately, we were just starting with kind of a homeschool with some like-minded parents. And fortunately, that’s when I got the call from the governor’s office.

So it’s been great here. They go to school, they have fun, they get to be kids, they’re not worried about something they don’t need to be worried about. And they’re happy, friends sports, how kids should be. Not this ridiculous sort of prison system school testing, mask, and stay away from other kids that some people in the country are trying to normalize.

BUCK: Speaking to Dr. Joseph Ladapo, surgeon general of the State of Florida. Dr. Ladapo, you guys did not have a mask mandate in schools over the last year or so — or certainly this past school year, I should say. What can you tell us in terms of the data on this? Because this is still… I just saw another study, I think it was yesterday, that’s in preprint that claims that masks reduce cases something like 75.

You actually look at the study, and it didn’t reduce cases but they said based on modeling reduced secondary cases, which, how they get that? Well, it’s a computer model. You can’t question it. What data do you have to answer the question the definitively whether mask mandates in schools are an effective protective measure or not?

DR. LADAPO: Well, basically there’s none. So in terms of the highest quality evidence we have about mask use, you look at the randomized clinical trials, and even the ones that have been done during the pandemic, and basically, they either find no benefit or a very small benefit. And none of the randomized clinical trials that have been done during the pandemic have found any benefit — zero, nothing — in young people. So it’s really a belief system in terms of the mask mandates in schools, and I’ll tell you.

One of the studies that the CDC touted as supporting it basically was taken down by The Atlantic, which is a left-leaning outlet. There were so many holes in the study, so many data errors, methodological errors, statements that were essentially false in the study, poor control groups. I mean, it really is sort of this… I don’t know. It’s like this crusade, and it’s just not founded in data.

CLAY: We’re talking to Dr. Joseph Ladapo. He’s the surgeon general of the State of Florida. I’m curiously medically — not just your opinion as a logical human being, but medically — State of the Union address, Joe Biden and virtually every member of Congress, Senator, Congressman, almost none of them are wearing masks. And yet the Biden administration came out yesterday and told us we have at least 30 more days of needing to wear masks on airplanes and in airports. Is there any medical basis at all to explain why it’s safe for everyone to not have masks at the State of the Union, but it’s unsafe for us to be not wearing masks on airplanes?

DR. LADAPO: (laughing) Well, was just so you can add it to the long list of things that make no sense, but public health leaders and political leaders have insisted needed to be done. Whether it’s like, “You sit down and you eat; you can take your mask off. You walk to the restroom, walk to the bathroom in the restaurant, you put it back on.” It’s just a lot of nonsense.

And a lot of Americans, I think, have woken up to that, and I just hope everyone does. It’s just been a complete sham, these measures that have been taken without really any substantial basis and evidence. And people have had two years, you know? Roll out the good evidence if you’ve got it. If not, please stop advocating for these burdensome policies.

BUCK: Dr. Ladapo, do you have a lot of physicians that you know personally or just through the professional world that come to you and say, “I’ve kind of known all along that this Fauciite madness was anti-scientific crap, but I was too scared to say anything. I thought they’d come after my license”? Are you coming across a lot of doctors who are saying now, “I was wrong; I should have agreed with you”? I’m just wondering, within the medical community… Some of us have been wondering why there are so few doctors who are willing to speak out about what is so plainly obvious now and has been for a long time.

DR. LADAPO: Yeah, it’s the good old cancellation theater. Docs, if you’re not independently wealthy, you depend on your medical practice to provide an income for your family. Well, when CNN and NBC and CBS and the dean of your medical school and whatever other health leaders are saying, like, you gotta wear the mask and you gotta do this and you gotta do that — even when the evidence doesn’t support it — people want to be able to put food on the table, pay for the mortgage and avoid the being called mean names by journalists.

So, I think that’s the main reason. For me, it was not enough. Just so many things were so wrong, and the stakes were so high, and I go back to the kids and these lockdowns and keeping them out of school. That’s gonna reverberate for decades. And we knew. That was no mystery. What do you expect? That’s what happens when you cut people, children off from a critical part of their development and their safety and their security. So I think the cancellation theater has been quite powerful in silencing doctors who know that the things that we’re doing don’t make sense.

CLAY: It’s interesting, Dr. Ladapo — and we appreciate the time you’re giving us. We know how busy you are. You laughed when I asked the question about the State of the Union, nobody wears masks, and then bringing it back for airplanes. It is so ridiculous, I think, to the vast majority of people who are listening to us right now, millions of people all over the country. But how do we end the mask mandate, right?

Because Buck and mine’s concern — and I’m sure this is something you worry about, too — is, even the places that are dialing back use of masks now are saying that they’re “able” to do it but they could bring them back. Remember, they took them away from us and said, “You don’t have to wear masks,” in May of last year, and then they brought ’em back throughout the rest of the summer and the fall. How do we end this once and for all?

DR. LADAPO: That’s the thing in my mind; I think that’s something that’s on Governor DeSantis’ mind also. My hope is that we can provide enough education to people so that they just stop participating in these silly, silly games. It’s completely ridiculous, it’s ludicrous, and if we don’t participate, there’s nothing that can be done. And that’s what should happen, because the evidence just isn’t there.

BUCK: Dr. Joseph Ladapo, surgeon general for the State of Florida. Sir, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

DR. LADAPO: All right. Thanks, guys.