Joseph A. Ladapo

Joseph Abiodun Ladapo (born December 16, 1978) is a Nigerian-American physician serving as the surgeon general of Florida since 2021.

Ladapo is best known for his opposition to COVID-19 mitigation measures and promotion of COVID-19 misinformation.

On September 3, 2025, Ladapo compared all vaccine mandates to slavery: "Every last one is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery." He followed this with: "If we want to move toward a perfect world, a better world, we can't do it by enslaving people in terrible philosophies and taking away people's freedoms."

On September 7, 2025, Ladapo said on CNN's State of the Union that vaccine mandates are not an issue of science but of "right and wrong."

After immigrating to the United States from Nigeria, Ladapo graduated from Wake Forest University and earned a M.D. and a Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University. He served as a professor of medicine at New York University before being tenured at the University of California, Los Angeles, prior to his appointment to his current position by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Ladapo has opposed gender-affirming care and counseling for transgender and nonbinary minors.

In September 2025, Ladapo, in his capacity as Florida surgeon general, compared vaccine mandates to slavery when announcing Florida's plans to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including those for children attending public schools. This announcement was met with grave concern from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Florida Education Association, among others.

Early life and education Ladapo, who is of Yoruba heritage, was born in Nigeria, the son of a microbiologist. He immigrated to the United States at age five with his family. In his memoir, Ladapo said he had been traumatized by sexual abuse from a babysitter.

After receiving his doctorates, Ladapo completed clinical training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.

Career After Harvard, Ladapo worked at the NYU School of Medicine, Bellevue Hospital, and Tisch Hospital in New York City. He received tenure at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he was a researcher, seeing patients about one day per week. However, UCLA's staff scheduling roster did not have him assigned to treat any COVID-19 patients, and several of his colleagues said he had never treated any COVID-19 patients. Later that year, Ladapo signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued for reaching COVID-19 herd immunity by the fringe notion of "focused protection", where the less vulnerable people were allowed to be infected. Faculty members have since alleged that university administrators suppressed information about Ladapo's views on COVID-19 before the vote on his tenure.

On appointment, Ladapo said he would move Florida public health away from a fear-based and "senseless" over-focus on mandating vaccines and toward medical choice and a focus on total health and numerous interventions to achieve it. he defended his actions on the ground that masking hindered effective communication. The Senate confirmed Ladapo on February 23, 2022; during background checks, his former UCLA supervisor refused a positive recommendation and said that Ladapo's "hands-off" approach towards tackling COVID-19 had not only distressed colleagues but also violated the Hippocratic Oath. In March 2022, Ladapo recommended that healthy children in Florida not be vaccinated against COVID-19; thus, Florida became the first state to contradict relevant guidelines by the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Experts cited by Ladapo disagreed with his stance and accused him of cherry-picking their work.

In October 2022, Ladapo cited an anonymous non-peer-reviewed analysis—claiming high cases of cardiac-related deaths among men who took mRNA COVID-19 vaccines—to suggest that men aged 18 to 39 not be vaccinated. In January 2023, the Faculty Council of the University of Florida College of Medicine concluded upon an investigation that Ladapo's recommendation was based on "careless and contentious research practice" and might have violated the university policies on research integrity. An April 2023 article in Politico mentioned that an anonymous complainant accused Ladapo of altering a study on COVID vaccines conducted by the state by replacing language suggesting the vaccines posed no significant risks for young men with the aforementioned language suggesting men 18-39 not be vaccinated. The Florida attorney general later closed the investigation when the complainant did not respond to requests for further information.

Starting in 2023 Ladapo changed the states medical marijuana program to a rolling 35 day total limit versus the limit being monthly allotment.

On March 10, 2023, Ladapo was publicly rebuked by the CDC and FDA for disseminating vaccine misinformation in response to a letter he wrote to the agencies that had misinterpreted data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

In September 2025, Ladapo announced that Florida would end all vaccine mandates, including those for children in schools, comparing the practice to slavery.

2024 U.S. measles outbreak In a letter to parents amid a 2024 measles outbreak at a Fort Lauderdale-area school, Ladapo acknowledged the "normal" recommendation that unvaccinated children stay home, but stated his department was "deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance." Ladapo's advice contradicts CDC guidance, which suggests that anyone not previously infected with measles or immunized against the disease observe a 21-day quarantine. Katelyn Jetelina and Kristen Panthagani, writing for Scientific American, referred to Ladapo's advice that children without immunization to measles could continue attending school after exposure as "unprecedented and dangerous". Leana Wen, in a column published by the Washington Post, characterized Ladapo's decision as "outrageous" due to the danger posed by measles.

Transgender health care Since 2022, Ladapo has also focused on opposing transgender health care.

For transgender and nonbinary children and teenagers, he opposes gender-affirming care and counseling, hormonal therapies, related medications, and social-transition tools such as pronoun and name changes. which banned gender-affirming care from being covered by insurance, provided by nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants, or offered via telehealth. The bill bureaucratically forced a pause on all gender-affirming care for trans adults in Florida by requiring them to sign a nonexistent form. Ladapo, in his official capacity as Florida Surgeon General, was sued in Doe v. Ladapo, as a result of which the law was struck down in June 2024.

Personal life Ladapo is married to Brianna Ladapo, who identifies as a spiritual healer, and the two have three children.