State Senator With Cancer Asked FL Surgeon General To Mask Up; He Refused: Report

TALLAHASSEE, FL — Florida’s top public health leader refused to wear a face mask when meeting with a state senator recently diagnosed with breast cancer in her office, according to reports.

Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat from Boca Raton, asked Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo to leave her Tallahassee office when he refused to wear a mask after she told him about her medical condition.

Polsky, who was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer, had surgery on Sept. 27 and is about to start radiation treatment, the Miami Herald reported.

Ladapo, who was recently appointed to the position of surgeon general, set up meetings with Polsky and several other senators ahead of the Senate’s confirmation hearing for his appointment.

When she asked him to put on a mask, he offered to meet with her outside instead.

“I don’t want to go outside,” Polsky said she told Ladapo, according to Florida Politics. “I want you to sit in my office and talk to you.”

When she asked why he wouldn’t wear a mask, he didn’t respond, she said.

“He just smiles and doesn’t answer. He’s very smug,” Polsky said. “And I told him several times, 'I have this very serious medical condition.’ And he said, ‘That’s OK,’ like it basically has nothing to do with what we are talking about.”

When she asked him to leave her office, Ladapo reportedly said, “Sometimes I try to reason with unreasonable people for fun.”

Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson (R-Trilby) sent a memo Saturday night criticizing the exchange, though he didn’t name Ladapo, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

“The prayers of the entire Senate family are with Senator Polsky as she begins her treatment,” Simpson wrote. “However, it shouldn’t take a cancer diagnosis for people to respect each other’s level of comfort with social interactions during a pandemic.”

He went on to call the surgeon general’s actions “unprofessional,” and said it “will not be tolerated in the Senate.”

Simpson added, “While there is no mask mandate in the Senate, senators and staff can request social distancing and masking within their own offices. If visitors to the Senate fail to respect these requests, they will be asked to leave.”

Ladapo has been a controversial figure throughout the pandemic. He’s made headlines downplaying COVID-19 vaccines and is associated with a group called America’s Frontline Doctors, which promotes bogus “cures” for the virus, CBS News reported.

In June, he co-authored an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, with the headline posing the question of whether they’re “riskier than advertised.”

When Ladapo’s appointment as surgeon general was announced, he told reporters that "vaccines are up to the person. There is nothing special about them compared to any other preventative measure.”

He added, “The state should be promoting good health, and vaccination isn't the only path to that. It's been treated almost like a religion and it's senseless."