Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced that the state would recommend against the Covid-19 vaccine for children ages five and older, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Florida, North Carolina, and Texas.

• Florida: Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Monday announced that the state will be the first to deviate from CDC's guidance and no longer recommend administering the Covid-19 vaccine to children ages five and older. Ladapo made the announcement at a roundtable with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as well as several medical professionals who largely oppose CDC's recommendations. Among those who participated in the discussion were Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, and biostatistician Martin Kuldorff—who were both chief signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocates for a hands-off approach to the pandemic and instead promotes natural "herd immunity." Ladapo has criticized Covid-19 safety measures, including quarantine, masking, and vaccines. (Sarkissian, Politico, 3/7)

• North Carolina: Mission Health last month announced that Philip Stahel had been appointed as the health system's new CMO. Stahel, who previously served as CMO for the Medical Center of Aurora, will step into his new role in April. He succeeds former CMO William Hathaway, who left Mission Health to join Mountain Area Health Education Center as its new CEO, effective Feb. 7. (Masson, Becker's Hospital Review, 2/28)

• Texas: The American Heart Association (AHA) on Friday announced that it had pledged $20 million for research to better recognize the disproportionate impact of maternal complications and death among Black women, Native American women, and women living in rural areas. Under the initiative, AHA will seek a greater understanding of the link between pregnancy complications and cardiovascular health among women and their children. "The Health Equity Research Network on Disparities in Maternal-Infant Health Outcomes is part of the multipronged approach of the American Heart Association's unprecedented pledge to aggressively address social determinants of health while working to improve health equity for all communities," said AHA President Donald Lloyd-Jones. "We are committing more than $230 million over the next four years to support targeted initiatives and programs addressing health equity, while leading additional efforts to drive systemic public health change focused on improving the social determinants of health and tackling issues of health justice and structural racism head on." (Gleeson, Becker's Hospital Review, 3/4)