‘I’m Kind of Shocked!’ Jake Tapper Confronts Florida’s Surgeon General on His Plan to End Vaccine Mandates

CNN’s Jake Tapper confronted Florida’s surgeon general, Sunday, about his plan to end vaccine mandates in the state.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Tapper grilled Dr. Joseph Ladapo about whether his department has gathered adequate data on the impact that ending vaccine mandates would have. The surgeon general’s plan to end vaccine mandates in Florida has come under intense criticism. Fox News senior medical correspondent Dr. Marc Siegel said Thursday that the plan was “absurd and disturbing beyond belief.”

“I’m looking at this report from your department from April showing that more people in Florida are seeking religious exemptions for vaccines and at the same time Florida is seeing rising cases of hepatitis A, and whooping cough, and chicken pox,” Tapper told Dr. Ladapo. “This is in your own report, your own department’s report. Before you made this decision to try to lift vaccine mandates for Florida — which include obviously public schools — did your department do any data analysis? Did you do any data projection of how many new cases of these diseases there will be in Florida once you remove vaccine mandates?”

Ladapo said “absolutely not,” and argued that mandates “don’t have anything to do with the notion of transmission. He added,
“ultimately, this is an issue, very clearly, of parents’ rights. So do I need to analyze whether it’s appropriate for parents to be able to decide what goes into the children’s bodies? I don’t need to do an analysis on that.”

Tapper was incredulous.

“You’re trying to lift the vaccine mandate in Florida, and your department and you did not even do a projection as to how this could impact public health,” Tapper said. “So you have not prepared hospitals in the Florida counties, most at risk, with the best treatments for any outbreaks of measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, polio. And you have not looked into how many kids might now get these preventable diseases? That’s what you’re saying?!”

“No, that’s what you said,” Dr. Ladapo replied. “What I’m saying is that it’s an issue of right and wrong in terms of whether parents should be able to control, have ultimate authority over what happens to their kids’ bodies.”

The CNN anchor went on to cite all the opposition to Ladapo’s stance on vaccination.

“You’re talking about doing something that no other state in the United States has done in removing the vaccine mandate for public schools,” Tapper said. “You’re making a decision that no other surgeon general in the United States has done. It goes against what’s recommended by every top medical organization including the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Boston Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. It goes against with parents in Florida want — 82 percent of parents in Florida schools said public schools should require vaccines for measles and polio with health and religious exemptions. It goes against what Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, wants. He thinks sticking with a religious exemption is fine. It goes against the Florida Medical Association, which in the past has backed Governor [Ron] DeSantis. So all of these people are wrong, and you are right?!”

The Florida surgeon general argued that he’s taking a principled stand.

“My history, if you will, is I share what I believe is the right thing to do, whether it’s popular or not,” Ladapo said. “I’ve been doing it for years. You know, I certainly did it during the Covid-19 pandemic. I thought that the lockdowns would be harmful. I said that as early as March 2020, after taking care of patients at UCLA hospital — some of whom had COVID. You know, we as a state. and I as an individual, recommended against the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines for children, healthy children very early, two years ago or so. And that was the correct decision there… we’ve been right over and over again, because what we’ve said has been based on data and common sense.”

Tapper doubled back to the surgeon general’s disinterest in gathering data to help shape his perspective on the issue.

“I have to say just, I’m very … I’m kind of shocked that you have not done any sort of projection or data analysis of what this is actually going to going to literally mean for kids in Florida,” Tapper said. He then asked, “What is your message to the parents of immunocompromised kids who are relying on most kids being vaccinated so their kids are safe? You talk about liberty and freedom for parents, but it seems like you’re removing liberty and freedom for the parents of kids who are immunocompromised.”

“It’s an interesting way to conceive that, to sort of describe that,” Ladapo said. “But I don’t think that’s the dynamic at all… [parents]are the ultimate arbiters of what happens with their children. That’s how it should be. And that’s why my position will never change, because that will always be true. It will always be true that parents should be able to decide what goes on, what goes into their kids’ bodies. I mean, it’s not complex at all.”

Watch above, via CNN.