Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo shocked America’s medical establishment last week when they said they would try to remove requirements that kids get vaccinated to attend school.

They said it is a matter of medical ethics — a philosophical belief that the government shouldn’t require people to put things in their bodies.

But Ladapo has refused to say whether kids should be vaccinated at all.

His office would not answer questions from the Herald/Times sent Monday about whether he recommends kids be vaccinated or whether he thinks the vaccines are safe.

“Parents are encouraged to consult with their health care providers when making informed health care decisions for their children,” the Florida Department of Health said in a statement.

The silence runs counter to comments DeSantis made Monday following a weekend of pushback from physicians, Florida’s previous surgeon general and even President Donald Trump.

“I think his position is that if you provide information and persuasion [about vaccines], that’s better than coercion,” DeSantis said of Ladapo.

In public statements and interviews over the last week, Ladapo has given no information on the safety of childhood vaccines or tried to persuade people about their use.

Instead, he said last week that mandating vaccines — such as every state’s requirement that kids be vaccinated to attend school — “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

“Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body?” Ladapo said. “I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God.”

Ladapo, a Harvard-educated former professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, rose to prominence for his contrarian views on the pandemic and was chosen by DeSantis to be the state’s surgeon general in 2021.

Giving advice on matters of public health has long been the purview of state and U.S. surgeons general.

Ladapo’s predecessors stressed the importance of hepatitis A vaccines and flu shots. The Florida Department of Health’s county offices conduct field visits and send out mail targeting newborns who are at risk for missing vaccines.

Ladapo, too, has given advice. Last month, he said he supported drinking raw milk for potential health benefits, although the product is not allowed to be sold for human consumption in Florida. He joined DeSantis’ fight against a proposed recreational marijuana amendment, and also pushed for policies that prohibit minors from receiving medical care for gender dysphoria, including hormone therapy and puberty blockers.

He was also an early opponent of the COVID-19 vaccine and mRNA shots.

During one interview with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, Ladapo called mRNA vaccines “the anti-Christ of all products.” He also said Florida’s county health departments should not offer those COVID vaccines, saying it was “literally immoral.”

While discussing COVID-19 with Megyn Kelly, Ladapo said there was “no way” he would give his three children a vaccine that was “developed using a relatively new technology.”

Thousands of Americans believe they’ve suffered serious injuries from the COVID vaccines. Federal health officials have said side effects are extremely rare.

Ladapo has been largely quiet about the types of vaccines that Florida schoolchildren have had to take for more than 50 years, such as protections from polio, measles and whooping cough.

When Florida saw measles cases move through a South Florida elementary school, Ladapo shocked some public health officials by saying it should be up to parents whether or not to send their kids to school, even if they were unvaccinated.

He and his wife have also given at least six interviews to Children’s Health Defense, the organization once led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that casts doubt on the safety of common vaccines.

In an interview with the organization in December, Ladapo spoke about the difficulty of going up against the medical establishment.

“It’s even worse with vaccines, because there’s a whole church associated with it. It’s a religion,” Ladapo said. “I have no problem with church. I just have a problem with, you know, enrollment in ideas without critical thinking.”

His proposal to remove all vaccine mandates in Florida has been criticized by medical professionals and politicians on both sides of the aisle.

When asked about Florida’s proposal Friday, Trump said some vaccines are “amazing,” and “you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated.”

“Look, you have vaccines that work. They just pure and simple work,” Trump said. “They are not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used. Otherwise, some people are going to catch it and they are going to endanger other people.”

Florida Sen. Rick Scott also came out against DeSantis and Ladapo’s proposal, saying that families already have religious exemptions allowing them to opt out of vaccines. Florida’s Republican lawmakers, who would have to pass a law removing the requirements, have been lukewarm to the idea.

Doctors and medical organizations across the country also condemned the idea.

“Vaccines are recognized as one of the most outstanding public health achievements of the past century,” Ladapo’s predecessor, Scott Rivkees, wrote last week in a piece published in the Tampa Bay Times. Rivkees is a pediatrician and a professor at Brown University.

The Department of Health, through a rule change, can remove four required vaccines that go beyond what state law requires — hepatitis B, Hib, chickenpox and pneumococcal disease. The department began that process, which can take about three months, on Wednesday.

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