Controversial anti-face mask Nigerian professor named as Florida's new surgeon-general

CONTROVERSIAL Nigerian medical practitioner and lecturer Professor Joseph Ladapo of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has been named as Florida’s new surgeon-general by Governor Ron DeSantis.

An associate professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine, Professor Ladapo succeeds Scott Rivkees, who recently returned to the University of Florida as an academic. Dr Ladapo’s research programne focused on patient-centered approaches for battling coronary artery disease and behavioral economic interventions to promote sustainable cardiovascular health, especially among adults with HIV.

Before his time at UCLA, Professor Ladapo was a faculty member in the Department of Population Health at the New York University School of Medicine. He graduated from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, then received both his medical degree and Ph.D from Harvard.

Born in Nigeria, Professor Ladipo immigrated to the US when he was five years old, along with his family, as his father, a microbiologist, came to the country to continue his studies. Professor Ladapo, however, has been critical of many public health measures, including mask-wearing, lockdowns and vaccines and his appointment comes as public health experts urge the state to take a more serious approach to the pandemic.

Governor DeSantis, like Professor Ladapo, has railed against measures like mask and vaccine mandates, with the governor saying last week that he will use fines to punish county and city governments for requiring their employees get vaccinated. Governor DeSantis also recently won his latest legal bid to preserve his executive order allowing parents, not school districts, to decide whether their kids would weak masks in school.

Professor Ladapo said: "I am very happy to be working with someone like the governor, who has a similar vision about how to think about weighing costs and benefits with managing this pandemic.  We respect that some parents may be less comfortable sending their kid back to school after being exposed, so the new rule allows for those parents to keep their children home for a period of time."