“Trust has really been broken,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said this week, discussing state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s announcement that the state is working to “end all vaccine mandates in Florida law.”
Ladapo made the announcement last week to rounds of applause, explaining that Florida is “going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law.”
“Every last one of them,” he continued. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
“Who am I as a government or anyone else, or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?” Ladapo asked. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body? I don’t have that right.”
“Your body is a gift from God,” he continued. “What you put into your body… is because of your relationship with your body and your God. I don’t have that right. Government does not have that right.”
“They want you to believe they have that right, and unfortunately, they’ve been successful,” he added.
DeSantis this week defended Ladapo from critics and helped explain just how officials arrived at the decision. He pointed to the fact that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added the coronavirus mRNA shot to the childhood immunization schedule during the Biden era.
“The problem with that is that there was not a scientific basis to do that. They’re doing it … and parents have rebelled. The vast, vast majority of parents do not do the COVID shot for that,” the governor said. “So it’s like, where are they coming up with this? So I think — I think the trust has really been broken.”
DeSantis “injected” a dose of common sense to the conversation:
But what really bugs me, because I think the schools — there’s exemptions, and so I actually don’t think the outcome would be much different at all. But I think on some of these other things, where you can be turned away from a doctor’s office if what? Your six-year-old didn’t take a hepatitis B shot. You know, that’s a sexually transmitted disease — like sitting in a classroom in kindergarten, I think the chance of contracting hep B is probably pretty low based on how it’s contracted.
“And so a lot of parents are like, you know, that may not be what we want, but then you’re going to be denied,” he said, explaining that it essential to have protections against this, citing instances of individuals being denied surgeries for not having the required shots.
“That’s really weaponizing this against people, imposing bad consequences on them just because the parent may have made a decision on one of those things, and I think that’s — I think, pretty much where people are at,” he said.
DeSantis also addressed the critics of this, noting that people will still be free to get whatever shots they desire.
“I saw a lot of stuff over there, ‘The surgeon general Florida is taking away vaccine.’ He never said anything. He never said that there wouldn’t be any availability. Obviously, that’s not his position. But I think his position is that if you provide information and persuasion, that’s better than coercion,” he added, reminding everyone that Ladapo strongly stood against the mainstream during the coronavirus era, standing against lockdowns and forcing children to wear masks in school.
“He was pilloried for that,” DeSantis added.
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