TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida senators are set to confirm four new Board of Medicine appointees, one of whom is ardently opposed to abortion, hormonal birth control and vaccine requirements.

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Dr. John Littell in November to the 15-person board, which in part is responsible for disciplining Florida doctors when they violate state law.

Littell temporarily lost his American Board of Family Medicine certification in 2023. The Board accused him of spreading misinformation about COVID-19, but moved to return his certification a few months later.

The Florida Board of Medicine handles disciplinary cases for things like medical malpractice, the irresponsible prescription of controlled substances and doctors getting kickbacks from referring patients to certain clinics.

It can also create rules for how physicians should practice.

The board will likely play a pivotal role as the DeSantis administration seeks to enforce restrictions for medical professionals around vaccination, abortion and medical care for children with gender dysphoria.

Littell, if approved by the full Senate, would be confirmed to a board that already has several members who are critical of those health measures.

“I believe my values are part of why I was asked to be on the board,” Littell said during testimony last week in Senate committee.

Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, questioned Littell about whether his strong stance on abortion would prevent him from seeing cases neutrally.

Littell said he was just one member of the board.

“I would be very confident, I myself as one doctor on the Board of Medicine cannot make anything happen, frankly,” Littell said.

DeSantis last appointed new members to the medical board in August 2024. That summer, he appointed Dr. Steven Christie, author of a book offering “30-Second Pro-Life Rebuttals to Pro-Choice Arguments.”

At the time, DeSantis was rallying state resources against a proposed constitutional amendment to protect abortion access.

One month before the November election, Christie appeared in a taxpayer-funded public service announcement to speak about Florida’s abortion laws.

In the video, Christie introduces himself as a member of the Board of Medicine and uses the title to bolster his authority, saying he would “set the record straight” on state abortion laws, which he said were being misrepresented.

Another board member, Dr. Hector Vila, was a witness for the state during a lawsuit over the mandatory 24-hour waiting period before an abortion. Vila was first appointed by then-Gov. Rick Scott and reappointed by DeSantis.

Three other board members, Dr. Patrick Hunter, Dr. Matthew Benson and Dr. Gregory Coffman, have been outspoken opponents of giving children treatment like puberty blockers and hormone therapy for gender dysphoria.

During a meeting in front of the Senate’s Ethics and Elections committee last week, Littell repeatedly said he was told not to talk about his views by friends and family, but offered them up anyway.

(He denied that anyone from the state told him to be silent, though he said he had “informal conversations” about his style in answering questions.)

Littell said he believed ivermectin, a medicine used to treat parasites, saved many lives during the COVID pandemic. The American Medical Association and American Pharmacists Association oppose prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID outside of clinical trials.

He said many of the protocols set by the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration have been proven false, mentioning the CDC’s “population control strategies in rural Georgia, lining 12-year-olds up for Depo-Provera injections.” It’s unclear what Littell was referencing.

He also said he’d like to address abortion medication being mailed in from out of state, but said that was beyond the board’s scope.

Littell also said that young women are being “stripped of their fertility” and that birth control has “done more damage to women than any single drug ever created by mankind.”

The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists said that myths about birth control affecting long-term fertility are unsupported by data.

Littell said women were “dropping like flies” on the birth control pill Yaz, which has paid billions to settle lawsuits from women accusing the medication of causing blood clots and heart attacks.

And on social media, Littell has spoken favorably about parents who “rightfully question the safety of vaccines” and called a requirement to give a kid a COVID vaccine “child abuse.”

Republican senators on Monday spoke favorably about Littell, calling him principled.

“I’m grateful for a physician who knows who he is and knows what he does,” said Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Pensacola.

Along with disciplining doctors, the Board of Medicine can set guidelines and rules for best medical practices. The board in 2023 prohibited transgender children from receiving medical treatment after being urged to do so by the DeSantis administration and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.

In a bill this year that would expand vaccine exemptions, lawmakers propose having the Board of Medicine and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine approve information about the risks, benefits, safety and efficacy of vaccines, to be presented to parents before they give their child a vaccine.

That bill isn’t moving forward this year, according to House Speaker Daniel Perez.

The House proposal creates penalties, including the potential loss of medical license, for physicians who turn away unvaccinated patients. DeSantis, first lady Casey DeSantis and Ladapo have all been in favor of requiring physicians to see unvaccinated children.

Along with Littell, the Senate is also poised to approve three other new appointees of DeSantis to the medical board, including Dr. Gobivenkata Balaji, Dr. Lee Gross and Deborah Sargeant.

Gross has testified in front of the U.S. Senate about the impact of federal bureaucracy on medicine and about the direct primary care model, which he practices at his clinic. Under that model, traditional insurance is disregarded and patients instead pay a monthly fee for access to low-cost health care.

Sargeant, who is not a doctor, was previously a trustee for Florida State University. Her husband, Harry Sargeant III, is an oil and energy magnate who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to campaigns supporting DeSantis and President Donald Trump.

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