On January 3, 2024, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo called for a halt to the use of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, calling the vaccines “not appropriate for use in human beings” and accusing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of not adequately assessing their risks. Ladapo’s claims were based on a widely debunked idea that mRNA vaccines contain contaminant DNA that could integrate into recipients’ DNA and cause cancer or chromosomal instability.
Public health experts have rebutted Ladapo’s claims. In a New York Times article, John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, argued that “there’s no evidence that any of this… actually happens or even could happen.” The FDA has issued several responses to Ladapo, including a rebuttal in March 2023, calling his anti-vaccine rhetoric irresponsible and misleading. Florida’s COVID-19 vaccination rates are among the lowest in the United States.