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DeSantis' surgeon general has a cushy do-nothing side gig at the University of Florida [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-11-27  

As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis prepared to announce Joseph Ladapo as the new surgeon general of his state, the University of Florida rushed to offer Ladapo a position as a tenured professor—violating its own hiring procedures in the process, according to a report by faculty. Two years down the road, questions continue to surround Ladapo’s involvement with UF.

Politico reports:

Professors had anticipated Ladapo would bring at least $600,000 in grant funding to his new appointment from his previous job at UCLA. That didn’t happen. They expected he would conduct research on internal medicine, as directed by his job letter. Instead, he edited science research manuscripts, gave a guest lecture for grad students and wrote a memoir about his vaccine skepticism.

“I don’t know what he is doing but it definitely isn’t research,” an unnamed College of Medicine professor told Politico.

As surgeon general, Ladapo is spreading COVID-19 disinformation, including altering the findings of a study to make the COVID-19 vaccines look less safe and opposing FDA guidance by advising people under 65 against getting the latest booster shot. As a professor of medicine he’s not doing much at all. For these services, the state of Florida is paying him $437,000 per year. But it’s that first part that DeSantis brought him on board for.

At the time he appointed Ladapo as surgeon general, DeSantis said he hadn’t known Ladapo was going to be hired by the university, a claim that was contradicted by internal UF communications. “Let’s be transparent about timelines and events for his hire. Contacted by applicant and Governor’s office for potential academic opportunities at UF,” a top administrator wrote to the chief communications officer. This was reported by the Gainesville Sun, which dug into how Ladapo got hired so quickly and with such precise timing aligning with his appointment as surgeon general.

DeSantis got his guy—someone with high-end credentials who would push public health disinformation aligned with DeSantis’ preferences. And he got his guy an additional cushy gig at the state’s top university, continuing his practice of treating Florida’s institutions of public higher education as sites to spread his politics and embed his loyalists. There doesn’t appear to be any danger at this point of DeSantis becoming president, but in this he was always just mimicking Donald Trump’s practice of treating the government as his personal fiefdom. Increasingly, this is how Republicans treat any part of the government they gain power over.

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