Vaccines: When the Experts Lie But Claim They Are Right

Adapted from Putting Floridians at Risk, a blog post by infectious disease physician and FDA advisor, Paul Offit, MD.

The lie: In October, the Surgeon General of Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, issued a “Provider Alert”, which recommended that the new COVID booster only be given to everyone over 65. This was contrary to the CDC recommendation, which recommends boosting everyone over 6 months of age. Governor Ron DeSantis agreed with Ladapo, amazingly weighing in with this: “Once again, Florida is the first state in the nation to stand up and provide guidance based on “truth,” not Washington edicts.” I guess edicts from Washington automatically are not truth, but those from the Florida Surgeon General, for some reason are, because DeSantis says so. Why does he believe he knows more than the CDC?

Ladapo amazingly claimed that the COVID boosters don’t work. He too seems to know more than the CDC! To back up this spurious claim he cited a study of 2.2 million people from Qatar who got the booster.

Backstory: At first, the vaccines were hoped to prevent spread of the Cov-2 virus as many vaccines do. Early on they did that. But it soon became apparent that vaccine protection waned faster than expected and the virus mutated faster than expected. That combination meant that the vaccines became less effective at preventing virus spread. They still retard infection early after vaccination, but that protection is quickly lost. What they do well is prevent severe illness and death. That is well documented after  a few years of experience with the vaccines and the pandemic. Therefore, the goal of COVID vaccines is to prevent severe disease—to keep people out of the hospital, out of the intensive care unit, and out of the morgue. The Qatar study showed that the booster does exactly that. Protective efficacy against severe disease was about 75 percent. Pretty good.

Back to the lie: Ladapo unprofessionally ignored this main point of the Qatar study—that the vaccine was highly effective at preventing severe disease—and chose to focus on smaller, less significant, less clinically relevant data that minor infections were not affected by the booster. On this selective date editing, he claimed the booster was entirely ineffective. He either ignorantly interpreted the study or did so dishonestly.

Ladapo also falsely claimed that the COVID boosters are unsafe, stating that, “mRNA COVID-19 vaccines present a risk of subclinical and clinical myocarditis and other cardiovascular conditions among otherwise healthy individuals.” This is an oft cited, unsupportable falsehood. The truth is that very mild myocarditis occurs in about 1 in 100,000 mRNA vaccine recipients.  In contrast, myocarditis occurs in roughly 1 in 5,000 CoV-2 infected patients. Also, myocarditis following vaccination is short-lived and quickly resolves on its own, while myocarditis caused by the virus is more serious often requiring medical intervention. Therefore, regarding myocarditis, the benefits of mRNA vaccination far outweigh the risks. Ladapo is being disingenuous citing this is a vaccine danger. And if Ladapo believes that the COVID boosters are ineffective and unsafe, as he claimed, he is, therefore, irresponsible in recommending them for everyone over 65. That would be malpractice.

In the name of standing up to “Washington edicts” and recommending people not be boosted, DeSantis is following unethical medical advice and putting Floridians at unnecessary risk for preventable serious disease. And he wants to be president. If that were to happen, we would then have real complaints about Washington vaccine edicts.

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