Florida's Surgeon General Ladapo to attend conspiracy conference, again
Whatever your snake oil, the WCH will provide a platform
For those outside of the US who might not be aware of Joseph Ladapo, he is Florida's anti-vax surgeon general who attended a secret meeting in the White House in August 2020 that included Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, Scott Atlas, John Ioannidis and several others advocating for a herd immunity via infection strategy.
Ladapo
On September 21, 2021, DeSantis appointed Joseph Ladapo as Florida's surgeon general despite Ladapo’s employer writing a letter warning he was unsuitable for the position. The appointment brought complaints from swathes of the medical community, Ladapo was associated with America’s Frontline Doctors, promoting unproven treatments, and questioning the safety of vaccines.
Asked on the day of his appointment as surgeon general whether he believed that states should promote vaccines, Ladapo said instead that states should promote "good health" and said that vaccines have "been treated almost like a religion. It's just senseless." In his first days as Florida surgeon general, Ladapo signed an emergency rule that repealed quarantines for schoolchildren exposed to covid.
In October 2021, he refused to wear a mask while in a meeting with State Senator Tina Polsky, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and due to undergo treatment. Ladapo subsequently refused to say whether he had been vaccinated.
On November 18, 2021, DeSantis signed a legislative package into law, to impose fines on businesses and hospitals that require vaccine passports. The legislation was signed a day after Florida Republican lawmakers passed his anti-mandate agenda which DeSantis called "the strongest piece of legislation that's been enacted anywhere in the country" in opposition to mandates.
March 2022, Ladapo issued a recommendation that healthy children in Florida not be vaccinated.
In June 2022, DeSantis decided against ordering COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5, making Florida the only state not to pre-order vaccines for that demographic
World Council for Health
WCH events demonstrate the interconnected nature of the disinformation ecosystem. The organisation acts as an umbrella group for a range of grifters and conspiracy theorists with over 140 coalition partner organisations from across the globe. Whatever your snake oil, 5G, staged UFO invasions, hexagonal water, the WCH provides a platform for them all.
From a previous piece for the Byline Times published May 2023
27 September 2022 Malhotra published a paper with Clare Craig in his own journal calling for the immediate halt to covid vaccination. The paper was released via a press conference by the World Council for Health (WCH), founded by Tess Lawrie as an umbrella organisation for groups promoting a range of alternative treatments from ivermectin to protection from 5G. Lawrie was a member of Pandata and HART before forming the British Ivermectin Research Group (BIRD). BIRD is the sister organisation to Pierre Kory’s Frontline Covid Critical Care (FLCCC) organisation in the US, they promote alternative treatment protocols for covid, long covid, and “spike detox”.
At the launch Malhotra claimed there was a “willful blindness” to vaccine injuries, likening the situation to Germans ignoring Nazi atrocities. Other speakers included Lawrie and Ryan Cole of FLCCC and also linked to AFLD. Malhotra was interviewed by Pandata’s Ivor Cummins in a documentary released at the same time and spoke at Chope’s APPG.
A few weeks later Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo published a paper raising concerns about covid vaccines particularly for young men. The paper’s authors are anonymous, however as reported by Politico a copy of the document reveals Ladapo deleted a section of the analysis showing no increased risk of death, and altered the conclusion's wording to claim significant increased risk of cardiac death after mRNA vaccination.
Ladapo appeared at AFLD’s first White Coats Summit in July 2020 and has defended his involvement with the group while DeSantis’ new covid ethics committee includes GBD authors Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorf, both members of Pandata and Collateral Global in the UK. Bridgen spent the Christmas period in the US meeting Republican politicians.
Further Reading
The Radicalisation of Andrew Bridgen – Byline Times
https://bylinetimes.com/2023/05/12/the-radicalisation-of-andrew-bridgen/
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I’ve tracked Ladapo for years…
I’d say that he exhibits all the proficiency of a Witch Doctor, though that unfairly disparages the Witch Doctor community.
Ahh, this really highlights how fragile our grasp on truth can be in today’s media environment. Humans are naturally drawn to information that feels familiar or fits with our existing beliefs and emotions, which makes repeated falsehoods especially sticky.
Anxiety, fear, and group identity further drive us to accept information that confirms what we already think or feel, even if it’s not accurate. At the same time, it takes significant effort and intention to critically evaluate what we see and hear. This is something that’s often lost in the fast pace and overload of information online.
Articles like what you've written really show how bad this problem is.