Episode #21 Deep Dive – CDC’s Chaos, Florida’s Denial & Medicare’s AI Death Panels
A deep dive into this week's episode of Paging America
Florida’s surgeon general Joe Ladapo wants to “end all vaccine mandates” in his state
Joseph Ladapo, a member of the anti-vaxx group America’s Frontline Doctors, held a press conference this week where he announced that the state is moving to “end all vaccine mandates.”
Via ABC News:
Florida is moving to "end all vaccine mandates" in the state, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced at a press conference on Wednesday.
Ladapo said the Florida Department of Health would be working with Gov. Ron DeSantis' office to end all mandates in state law, at the event at Grace Christian School in Valrico, located just east of Tampa.
"Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery," Ladapo said of vaccine mandates.
America’s Frontline Doctors has been on the frontline of COVID-19 grifting since the start of the pandemic. TIME published an article in 2021 titled, “How ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’ Sold Access to Bogus COVID-19 Treatments—and Left Patients in the Lurch”, that revealed the group was prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine via telemedicine visits, often to serious medical results:
Over the past three months, a TIME investigation found, hundreds of AFLD customers and donors have accused the group of touting a service promising prescriptions for ivermectin, which medical authorities say should not be taken to treat or prevent COVID-19, and failing to deliver after a fee had been paid. Some customers described being charged for consultations that did not happen. Others said they were connected to digital pharmacies that quoted excessive prices of up to $700 for the cheap medication. In more than 3,000 messages reviewed by TIME, dozens of people described their or their family members’ COVID-19 symptoms worsening while they waited for an unproven “wonder drug” that didn’t arrive.
“My mom has now been admitted to the hospital with Covid,” one user wrote Aug. 12 on the group’s channel on the messaging app Telegram. “AFLDS has not returned a call or message to her and they’ve taken over $500 out of her account!”
Florida has a history of using government resources to push specific political ideologies. Last year, the state used tax dollars to fight against a ballot proposal to protect reproductive rights in the state:
Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida Republican leaders have repeatedly tapped into taxpayer-funded resources to fight a November ballot initiative that would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban.
Their repeated efforts — from a state-run website attacking the amendment to election police questioning signers of the petition to get the measure on the ballot — have drawn them into a protracted legal fight with the campaign behind the initiative, which will appear before voters as Amendment 4.
RFK Jr.’ and the ongoing chaos at the CDC
Last week, CDC Director Susan Monarez was ousted by the Trump administration and was escorted out of the building by security:
Susan Monarez, who was ousted as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday afternoon after only weeks on the job, said hours later that she had not been fired and would not resign.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) posted a statement on the social platform X at about 5:30 p.m. EDT saying, “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Less than two hours later, Washington, D.C., attorney Mark Zaid released a defiant statement on Monarez’s behalf.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” the statement said.
In response to the firing of Monarez, four senior CDC officials announced their resignations. They were escorted out of the building amid the applause and cheers of CDC employees who staged a rally to honor their decision.
One of the four, Demetre Daskalakis, who led the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, pulled back the curtain on the anti-vaxx direction of the agency:
Daskalakis added that he was “very concerned that there’s going to be an attempt to relitigate vaccines that have already had clear recommendations with science that has been vetted,” which he warned could undermine public trust. “If you can’t attack access, then why not attack trust? And that’s what I think the playbook is,” he said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is calling for oversight of the CDC by the HELP Committee and urged ACIP to postpone its September meeting due to “the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed.” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) is calling for RFK Jr. to resign. She is joined by more than 1,000 current and former HHS employees.
Monarez was replaced by Jim O’Neill, a former biotechnology executive and the deputy to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. O’Neill who has no medical or scientific training.
Amid the chaos created by his administration, Trump posted that the CDC is being “ripped apart” and demanded that “the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs.” This is despite the fact that approval of vaccines requires enormous amounts of evidence (which is made public) proving their efficacy. In his statement, Trump appears to want credit and accolades for the very mRNA vaccines that RFK Jr. maligns on a regular basis.
Also last week, the FDA approved 2025-2026 COVID vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax. However, the agency has approved them only for adults 65 and older and younger people with certain medical conditions that put them at a higher risk. They also removed one of the vaccines available for the youngest kids. Altogether, the new approvals will make it difficult for millions of Americans to access the shots. This comes as COVID-19 cases are on the rise across the country.
CNN: These are the conditions that make you eligible for an updated Covid-19 vaccine
You can watch Committee Executive Direction Rob Davidson’s response to the limiting of vaccine access HERE.
In related news, POLITICO reports that getting a vaccination is likely to get much harder going forward:
The millions of Americans who are used to getting their Covid-19 vaccines at a local pharmacy may face new hurdles this fall depending on where they live and whether federal health officials have decided they qualify.
Pharmacists’ authority to vaccinate individuals varies across state lines. In some places, it’s dependent upon a federal advisory process that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended. [...]
At least 18 states and Washington, D.C., tie their pharmacists’ vaccination authority to the official recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, whose membership Kennedy overhauled in June to include several skeptics.
Some national pharmacy chains are already limiting access to the vaccines. “CVS and Walgreens are now requiring a prescription or are not offering COVID-19 vaccines in some states as the companies attempt to follow state guidelines that require approvals from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” CBS News reports.
In a scathing op-ed in The New York Times, nine former directors of the CDC say RFK Jr. is “endangering every American’s health.”
AI Death Panels
The New York Times reported that Medicare is conducting a pilot program, called the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction Model, in six states to require prior authorization for certain procedures:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to begin a pilot program that would involve a similar review process for traditional Medicare, the federal insurance program for people 65 and older as well as for many younger people with disabilities. The pilot would start in six states next year...
The federal government plans to hire private companies to use artificial intelligence to determine whether patients would be covered for some procedures, like certain spine surgeries or steroid injections. Similar algorithms used by insurers have been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits, which have asserted that the technology allowed the companies to swiftly deny large batches of claims and cut patients off from care in rehabilitation facilities.
The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.
The government said the A.I. screening tool would focus narrowly on about a dozen procedures, which it has determined to be costly and of little to no benefit to patients. Those procedures include devices for incontinence control, cervical fusion, certain steroid injections for pain management, select nerve stimulators and the diagnosis and treatment of impotence.
Critics are calling the program “AI Death Panels”.
Tavern Research and MAHA Opinions
This week’s guest was Matt Lackey, CEO of Tavern Research. Matt has 20+ years of work in political strategy, data, and technology and has worked with numerous major campaigns, including Obama 2008 and Buttigieg 2020.
Tavern Research has just released new polling on how people feel about RFK Jr.’s so-called “MAHA Agenda”. Titled, “Surprising new research finds Americans oppose technology that kills us, support technology that saves lives,” it shows that Americans are divided in their opinions about the MAHA Agenda and that the split doesn’t necessarily fall along party lines:
On August 13, 2025 - August 15, 2025 Tavern Research surveyed 7,913 Americans about their views on Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). The survey was conducted on the web with the sample drawn from commercial web panels. The survey is weighted to the voting population of the US.
Voters support some parts of the MAHA agenda and oppose other parts. Food safety reforms are popular, but voters oppose vaccine and public health cuts.
Americans are divided on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" agenda, with 42% support and 40% oppose.
At first glance, this could read as another partisan divide, but the data tell a richer story. The public strongly backs Kennedy's food safety initiatives like:
Banning artificial dyes (63% support)
Stricter FDA review of food additives (66% support)
Restricting ultra-processed foods in federal programs (51% support).
But the public also rejects the more controversial positions on vaccines and public health infrastructure: Clear majorities oppose:
Canceling mRNA vaccine research funding (49% oppose vs. 30% support)
Replacing the vaccine advisory committee (46% oppose vs. 33% support)
Cutting 20,000 health agency jobs (55% oppose vs. 29% support).
Americans also favor government coverage for gym memberships and healthy food (60% support) but remain skeptical about removing fluoride from water (44% oppose vs. 35% support) and worry that Kennedy's policies overall may endanger public health (45%) rather than improve it (33%).
This nuanced response suggests voters appreciate Kennedy's populist critique of corporate influence on food safety while rejecting his assault on established public health institutions and vaccine science.
Dig deeper HERE.