FLORIDA — Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo is recommending that adult men under 40 stay away from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. 

The new guidance was issued Friday and states that a Florida Department of Health analysis on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines showed an increased risk of cardiac-related death among men ages 18-39. 

"The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety,” a news release from the Florida Department of Health states. “This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group.” 

Ladapo first released this new guidance in a tweet. The tweet was taken down for a few hours over the weekend after Twitter flagged it as misinformation, but it was later restored. 

Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, called Twitter’s actions “an unacceptable and Orwellian move for narrative over fact.” 

The study and statement from Ladapo has been met with criticism from medical experts. 

Dr. Kristen Panthagani, a resident at Yale, criticized the guidance in a series of tweets. Her concerns were that the link to the analysis is a .PDF of a Word document that doesn’t list the authors and hasn’t been published or peer-reviewed. She was also critical of what data was used to get the findings. 

DeSantis has not yet made a statement on this guidance.