At a press conference at Florida State University in Tampa, Florida, Florida Surgeon General Dr Joseph Ladapo made an urgent call for the NIH program funding to help Americans injured by Covid-19 vaccines and expressed support for the May federal changes in the HHS’s restrictive Covid-19 vaccine recommendations.

On the Ground in Tampa: What Ladapo Really Said

I was invited to Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s press conference in Tampa on July 17, 2025. In contrast to how some mainstream outlets later portrayed it, the event centered on a call to recognize and research Covid-19 vaccine injuries, rather than a mere anti-vaccine screed. Dr. Ladapo – a physician and Florida’s top health official since 2021 – emphasized the urgent need to support those suffering adverse effects from mRNA Covid-19 shots. He praised recent federal moves to scale back mRNA vaccine recommendations for certain groups, but went further by asserting that these products “should not be used in any human beings,” given their safety profile. From my front-row perspective, Dr. Ladapo’s tone was measured yet resolute. He recounted how unusual it is, in his experience, to encounter so many post-vaccination issues. “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?” Ladapo asked pointedly.

Before the Covid era, he noted, he never personally knew a patient who was clearly vaccine-injured. “Now,” he continued, “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.”

This was a striking report that hung in the air – one supported anecdotally by nods from some attendees sharing their own stories. Dr. Ladapo stressed that adverse reactions have become distressingly commonplace, and he even bluntly called the Covid shots “terrible vaccines” as a result. …

Vaccine injuries may be statistically rare (exact rates are debated), but they are no less real for those afflicted. Dr. Ladapo’s appeal, backed by voices like Dr. Kory’s, is that public health authorities must actively care for those individuals, not marginalize them. This doesn’t require abandoning vaccination programs for the majority; it requires a parallel effort to make whole those who drew the short straw on the risk curve. In practical terms, that could involve specialized treatment clinics, research into therapies (from immunosuppressants to novel drugs that might neutralize lingering spike protein, for example), and proper acknowledgement of vaccine injury syndromes in medical literature and education.

As of this writing, it remains to be seen how the NIH and federal government will respond. Will they expand long-Covid studies to explicitly incorporate vaccine-adverse events, as Florida’s Surgeon General demands? Early signs are mixed. The Health and Human Services leadership under RFK, Jr. has already signaled a more skeptical stance on mRNA vaccines for low-risk groups, suggesting some openness to evaluating safety signals anew.

However, institutional inertia and fear of fueling vaccine hesitancy have made agencies cautious about prominently investigating harms.

In Tampa, Dr. Joseph Ladapo delivered a message that the mainstream narratives largely sidelined: that caring for the vaccine-injured is now an urgent public health priority. Those of us who were present heard not just criticism of vaccines, but a compassionate plea to help people who “did the right thing” per societal guidance, yet ended up with lasting health issues. “We need to fund physicians…and do scientific work in this area,” he reported, effectively asking the country’s medical establishment to step up. Time will tell if that call is heeded. For now, Ladapo’s stance – controversial as it may be – shines a spotlight on patients who often suffer in the shadows. And as Dr. Pierre Kory and others affirm, shining that spotlight is the first step toward bringing those patients the understanding, treatments, and hopefully recovery that they desperately need.