Jacksonville Florida Times-Union This online-only column is part of a series of shorter opinion essays by USA Today Network-Florida columnist Nate Monroe on the constant flow of outrageousness and shadiness in the Sunshine State. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis began the dawn of the second Trump era by publicly lobbying for his surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, to become the next leader of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There would be undeniable logic in the governor's preference: Animal-corpse curator and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be an influential voice in matters of public health under the second Trump administration, representing an abrupt rise of a once-marginal figure that is not so different than Ladapo's own. Ladapo and Kennedy would make a great tag-team ushering back in a world of diphtheria, smallpox, grippe, horrors and night hoss. DeSantis plucked Ladapo out of obscurity to replace Scott Rivkees, whose dedication to public health and science during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were apparently mortal sins. So first, DeSantis disappeared Rivkees then eventually replaced him. In Ladapo, DeSantis found a true quack willing to embrace marginal beliefs about the dangers of vaccines and a sycophant willing to partner on purely political projects: It was Ladapo's agency, after all, that recently threated TV executives with prosecution for running ads that supported Amendment 4, a popular proposed reversal of the state's near-total abortion ban. "Putting the department in a position to actively block opposition to an abortion rights ballot amendment by having it issue cease and desist letters to media outlets running pro-choice advertisements subjugates, undermines and shows a lack of respect for public health and the people they protect in the state," Rivkees wrote in The Hill last month of his successor's actions. It's not just Ladapo's COVID-19 vaccine skepticism or heavy-handed politics that has alarmed doctors. He was also alarmingly laid back about a measles outbreak in South Florida schools earlier this year, lamely saying he was "deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance" instead of the more practical — i.e. normal — advice that parents should get their children vaccinated and keep unvaccinated kids at home. If we're returning to a pre-fluoridated world where apothecaries hawk elixirs, potions and tonics to cure break-bone and king's evil, Ladapo's your man. And he would add the patina of professional legitimacy to Kennedy's rumpled conspiracism and sordid past. The most substantial headwind Ladapo likely faces is DeSantis' advocacy on his behalf: Trump and DeSantis can't stand one another, and the newly empowered Trump doesn't have a habit of shining on traitors to his cause. Nate Monroe is a Florida columnist for the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU. Email him at nmonroe@gannett.com. Featured Weekly Ad