With a brief memo, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has subverted a public health standard that's long kept measles outbreaks under control.

On Feb. 20, as measles spread through Manatee Bay Elementary in South Florida, Ladapo sent parents a letter granting them permission to send unvaccinated children to school amid the outbreak.

The Department of Health "is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance," wrote Ladapo, who was appointed to head the agency by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose name is listed above Ladapo's in the letterhead.

Ladapo's move contradicts advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is not a parental rights issue," said Scott Rivkees, Florida's former surgeon general who is now a professor at Brown University. "It's about protecting fellow classmates, teachers, and members of the community against measles, which is a very serious and very transmissible illness."

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[–] 27 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Just a friendly reminder that the R∅ for measles is 12 to 18 making one of the most infectious diseases of the modern world.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    For comparison: the R∅ of the 1918 Spanish flu was estimated to be between 1.4 and 2.8.

    Early-COVID was estimated around 2 as well.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago

    What could possibly go wrong?

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago

    Ladapo is an accessory to murder whenever an unvaccinated child dies.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    It’s Florida what did you expect

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Hopefully it's only antivaxxers' kids who die because of this.

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  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Children shouldn't have to die because of braindead parents.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    If you’re a Florida parent listening to a Qanut for advice, well.

    You’re entering a world of pain.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Sounds like the same Florida that attacked health care officials during Covid to the point of attacking children of them to make a point.

    That state is fucked up and yet full of rich cunts who think of it as a permanent vacation because they stole wealth from their original home.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    This feels like culling the herd with extra steps. Like... Someone smart was like... Hey, we need to get rid of dumb people. How do we do that? Oh, I know... Make a place where the dumb people really want to go by relaxing laws that protect people from being dumb. Then, we'll make the dummies believe they're the smart and patriotic ones for moving there. When they all wind up in this insane distopia, let's just... Infect them with measles and tell them it's fine! As long as Facebook and a bunch of weirdo authority figures reinforce their dumb feelings of being smart, in the end, we won't even need a genocidal dictator or gas chambers! The dummies will do the job for us!

    I mean... it's just a thought. That's not really what's happening...

    ... Right?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Constant reminder the GOP only value kids until the nanosecond they're born, then fuck em.

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  • [+] 1 point 2 years ago