FLA. DEPT. OF HEALTH ALTERED DATA TO SAY VAX DANGEROUS

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at with State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo (2nd from right)

By Mark Sumner

Daily Kos

Last October, Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo issued an extraordinary warning. 

Based an analysis of Florida residents, Ladapo asserted that being vaccinated for COVID-19 resulted in an “increased risk for cardiac-related mortality” in the month following vaccination. Even more astoundingly, that analysis claimed that mRNA vaccines represented a “substantial” risk for both all-cause and cardiac-related deaths for men between 18 and 39. 

According to Ladapo , there was an “84 percent increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death” for men in that age group following vaccination with an mRNA vaccine. As a result, the state of Florida officially recommended against men getting vaccinated for COVID-19.

Since that announcement, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly backed Ladapo’s recommendation. The numbers from that state-controlled Florida “study” have become standard fare for anti-vaccine claims from Fox News to Robert Kennedy Jr. Kennedy even had Ladapo on his anti-vax podcast to promote a book Ladapo authored in which he scoffed at the “panic and fear” of other public health officials when it comes to COVID-19.

However, right from the start, Ladapo's colleagues were highly skeptical of both his findings and his recommendation. Now the Tampa Bay Times demonstrates that there were very good reasons for that skepticism. Because to get the numbers he wanted, Ladapo altered the results of the study, leaving out what it really discovered: “The risk associated with COVID-19 infection clearly outweighs any potential risks associated with mRNA vaccination.”

This is the conclusion of the study as published by Ladapo.
As the Tallahassee Democrat reported back in January, that “84 percent increase” was still there in the earlier version of the report, but there were only 20 cases of coronary events in that age group across the study, making the whole number too small to be statistically significant. 

For scientists who evaluated Ladapo’s version of the report, the evidence was clear that he had committed “reporting bias by cherry picking results; focusing only on evidence that supports his stance, ignoring contradicting evidence and failing to appropriately acknowledge the limitations of his own data set.”

To find something he could use to “prove” mRNA vaccines were dangerous, Ladapo scanned the tables, found one number where deaths within a certain period for one small group were higher, and singled it out as a cause for alarm. He did so even though it was obvious that the number he was selecting was based on a sample size so small that it amounted to no more than “noise” in the results.

Not only does the Times version show how Ladapo deliberately altered the conclusion of the report to highlight the false fear he wanted to create, to better highlight the results, Ladapo removed a whole set of data from the study: the data concerning what happened to Floridians who became infected with COVID-19.

In order to support the anti-vaccine claims that both Ladapo and DeSantis had supported, the state surgeon manufactured a false claim that mRNA vaccines were dangerous. In doing so, he completely ignored the obvious – COVID-19 really is dangerous.

Ladapo’s recommendation wasn’t just wrong, it was malpractice that has almost certainly resulted in numerous deaths, not just in Florida, but everywhere his false claim was repeated. It may not be possible to charge Ladapo and DeSantis with murder. That doesn’t make them less guilty.