On September 13, 2023, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo contradicted guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when he warned healthy adults under the age of 65 against the new Covid-19 booster at a roundtable hosted by Governor DeSantis. On whether or not young people should take the booster, Ladapo said: “With the amount of immunity that’s in the community—with virtually every walking human being having some degree of immunity, and with the questions we have about safety and about effectiveness, especially about safety, my judgment is that it’s not a good decision for young people and for people who are not at high risk at this point in the pandemic.” A known vaccine skeptic, Ladapo’s previous Covid vaccine guidance has been “widely rejected by the medical community.”
The director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins, Daniel Salmon, accused Ladapo and the other roundtable participants of cherry-picking data and facts to avoid a vaccine recommendation. Despite Ladapo’s unfounded claims about the safety of the booster, the CDC and FDA are recommending it for people ages 6 months and up: “The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality…We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”