OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:25 PM – Thursday, July 17, 2025
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo delivered remarks in Tampa on Thursday morning, addressing the revised federal guidelines concerning COVID-19 mRNA vaccinations. He also urged the federal government to intensify research efforts into “long COVID.”
Long COVID refers to a range of symptoms that persist for weeks, months, or years after the initial infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus that causes COVID-19, even after the person has tested negative. However, some have argued that long COVID is actually an mRNA “vaccine injury.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Ladapo commended Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent statement advising against the use of mRNA or COVID-19 vaccines for healthy populations, pregnant women, and children.
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“We made that same announcement three years ago, I think, in South Florida, in Miami. We were happy to see the federal government doing that,” he said.
However, according to Dr. Ladapo, the mRNA vaccines are, in his view, unsuitable for humans.
“They shouldn’t take them. They are products that should not be going into human beings,” Ladapo said.
“When was the last time that you had a vaccine that literally almost every single person knows someone who had a bad reaction from it? I’ve been a physician with my MD since 2011. I’ve taken care of many, many, many patients. I have seen, until this pandemic, I mean, I could not tell you someone I knew individually who I was confident that was actually injured from a vaccine. Now, there are very few people that I run into who either themselves have not had a bad reaction from these mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, or who don’t know someone who’s had a bad reaction to these vaccines. They are terrible vaccines,” Ladapo continued.
He also suggested that one reason for the limited public discourse surrounding the vaccines is the perception held by some that President Donald Trump bears responsibility for their development and rollout.
“I want to make it very clear. President Donald Trump, last I checked, he didn’t go to medical school. OK. He doesn’t have a PhD in epidemiology, or virology, or immunology. His job was to lead the nation and he did that the best way he could with the information he had,” Lapado said, suggesting that Trump would have never known the possible complications that could arise.
He advocated for increased funding and expanded research to better equip patients and healthcare providers with a deeper understanding of the long-term effects associated with mRNA vaccines.
“Today, I want to call on the federal government, NIH to expand the work that they are doing in long-COVID to genuinely and wholly include vaccine-injured people. Specifically, people who have been injured by mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. We need to study this better. We need to fund physicians who are caring for these patients clinically and who are doing scientific work in this area,” Ladapo said.
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