Update: 

City of Sarasota officials have confirmed that Freedom Fest has been approved. The "medical freedom" event will take place on Monday, April 14, at Five Points Park in downtown Sarasota.

According to Vic Mellor, one of the festival's organizers, the event will highlight "medical ethics, patient rights and Florida’s leadership in health freedom." While there has been no overt mention of the event as a reaction to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s previously scheduled appearance in Sarasota on the same day, the event's website prominently displays the words “No Fauci” on its homepage, along with an image of Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, crossed out with a “no” sign.

The final lineup of speakers and participants has not been formally confirmed, but the site asks attendees to “join top doctors, health freedom warriors, and artists for a powerful gathering of truth, music, and action.” Among those in discussions to appear is Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who made an apperance at Mellor's We the People Health & Wellness Center in Venice last year.

Mellor says the festival is a "family-friendly, community-driven event featuring live music, wellness activations, and powerful stories from individuals and medical professionals with firsthand experience navigating complex health outcomes. We welcome everyone to attend and be part of a meaningful conversation around transparency, trust, and patient-centered care in Florida’s healthcare landscape."

The Florida Department of Health did not respond when asked whether Ladapo is planning to participate in the festival, and the event applicant, Michelle Pozzie, did not respond to a request for comment.

Read the original article here:

As Dr. Anthony Fauci prepares to speak in Sarasota on Monday, April 14, as part of the Ringling College Library Association's Town Hall lecture series, another event is being planned nearby for that same day with a different perspective on public health. Organizers are calling it Freedom Fest, and it will feature Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. While a permit for the event has not yet officially been approved, if it does move forward, it will take place the same day as Fauci's talk at Five Points Park in downtown Sarasota.

The event is being organized by Michelle Pozzie, a Republican activist and former candidate for the Florida House of Representatives. During her campaign, Pozzie advocated for “medical freedom," opposed Covid-19 vaccines and was endorsed by Moms for America, the America First Southwest Florida Caucus and former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Ladapo, who holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. in health policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has questioned the safety of mRNA vaccines and discouraged their use by young, healthy people. He has drawn criticism from medical experts and federal agencies who argue that his views contradict established scientific consensus. In 2023, he was found to have altered findings in an analysis of Covid-19 vaccine safety, claiming the vaccine presented higher health risks for young men.

Ladapo has also been criticized for providing guidance that contradicts established medical consensus in other instances, too. During a 2024 measles outbreak in Weston, Florida, he advised that unvaccinated children could continue attending school, opposing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations that unvaccinated children remain quarantined for 21 days after being exposed to the disease.

As the permit application for the event has made its way through the city's approval process, also copied in the email exchange is Vic Mellor, co-owner of Venice's We the People Health & Wellness Center, which has drawn scrutiny for promoting unverified Covid-19 treatments. It has also employed doctors who were terminated for spreading vaccine misinformation. According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Mellor was present at the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and posted a photo of himself at the scene on social media with the caption, "Just knocked on front doors." A former U.S. Marine and co-founder of Colonial Construction Co., Mellor defended his presence at the riot, saying, "I believe we were rightfully there."

Mellor also owns The Hollow 2A, a 10-acre property in Venice that has become a gathering spot for conservative activists and has hosted events featuring prominent conservative figures like Flynn. It has also attracted members of the Proud Boys, the far-right extremist group. 

We the People Health & Wellness Center co-owner Tanya Parus, meanwhile, is a local chapter president of the conservative group Moms for America, and at one point, helped hundreds of parents receive signed waivers exempting their kids from having to wear masks to school during the pandemic. The center is sponsoring Freedom Fest.

Pozzie, the event applicant and organizer, did not respond to multiple interview requests from Sarasota Magazine. Details about the event have not yet been publicized, and it remains unclear whether the event is being timed to coincide with Fauci's visit. According to permit applications, the event is expected to offer live music and feature other guest speakers in addition to Ladapo.

If approved, the event would be expected to attract a mix of anti-mandate activists, vaccine skeptics and political figures aligned with Florida’s rightward shift in public health policy. The effects of that change are playing out at local government meetings on items like ending decades-long water fluoridation programs, which has drawn the support of figures like new U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Around the country, as more parents opt out of basic childhood vaccinations, the effects are already being seen. For example, Florida's first measles case of 2025 was reported in a teenager in Miami-Dade County this week.