Florida Surg Gen Dr. Joseph Ladapo: How science is interpreted through a political lens.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s Surgeon General, exposes the troubling divide in how science is interpreted through a political lens. In a candid discussion, he highlights the stark polarization surrounding COVID-19 vaccines and masks, lamenting how ideology often trumps evidence.

“I look at the data, and it’s just like, I don’t know how people can defend these positions,” Ladapo says, pointing to the inseparability of politics and science in public discourse.

He specifically calls out the evidence on masks, noting that randomized clinical trials show “no benefit or maybe a tiny little benefit at best.” Yet, interpretations of this data vary wildly based on political leanings.

“If you’re a researcher and lean to the right, you interpret it one way. If you lean to the left, you interpret another way,” he observes, underscoring the distortion of objective truth.

This is a wake-up call: science should unite us in pursuit of facts, not divide us by ideology. When politics hijacks data, trust in institutions erodes, and public health suffers.

Dr. Ladapo’s frustration is a plea for reason—can we return to evidence-based discourse, or are we too far gone?