by Keith Griffith, Daily Mail:
- Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made the claims at event on Thursday
- Advised against new COVID booster that is awaiting FDA approval
- DeSantis joined him on stage and vowed no mandates or lockdowns
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis‘ hand-picked surgeon general has warned against getting the new COVID-19 booster vaccine that is expected to receive approval in the coming days.
The state’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made the claims at a press conference on Thursday, saying there was no evidence to support getting the shot and that there are ‘red flags’ about its safety.
The updated shots, which target an Omicron subvariant named XBB.1.5, are awaiting FDA approval on standards for safety, effectiveness and quality, and must then receive CDC sign-off, which could come as early as Tuesday.
‘Listen inside to what makes sense, what feels right, you know, what feels like truth,’ said Lapado, offering his advice on receiving the shots.
‘We all know it when we feel it inside.’ Lapado went on to claim global studies showed people who had the boosters were more likely to catch COVID itself.
DeSantis joined Lapado at the event and did not offer a specific opinion on the booster, but slammed federal regulators at the FDA and CDC as corrupt, claiming they ‘have basically become an arm of Big Pharma.’
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has warned against getting the new COVID-19 booster vaccine that is expected to receive approval in the coming days
Los Angeles residents are seen masking up at Union Station on August 31, as an uptick in COVID cases drives a return to pandemic habits in some areas
Spokespersons for the FDA and CDC did not immediately respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday.
Ladapo’s previous warnings against older versions of the COVID-19 vaccines drew a harsh rebuke from the two agencies in March, when they published an open letter accusing him of ‘fueling vaccine hesitancy’.
‘Based on available information for the COVID-19 vaccines that are authorized or approved in the United States, the known and potential benefits of these vaccines clearly outweigh their known and potential risks,’ the letter said.
‘It is the job of public health officials around the country to protect the lives of the populations they serve, particularly the vulnerable. Fueling vaccine hesitancy undermines this effort,’ added the letter, signed by FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Approval of the updated COVID-19 booster shots is expected within days. Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax all have manufactured new versions of the vaccine.
Similar to how flu shots are updated each year, the FDA gave COVID-19 vaccine makers a new recipe, targeting the variant that was dominant over the summer.
But as expected, the XBB.1.5 variant it targets has faded away in the months it took to tweak the vaccine.
CDC estimates show XBB.1.5 is responsible for about 3 percent of current cases, while a soup of other newer Omicron variants dominates, led by EG.5 at about 20 percent.
At Thursday’s event, held inside an Irish pub in Jacksonville, DeSantis vowed Florida would not be temporarily closing schools or mandating mask-wearing over rising COVID cases
