Rogan: Many Things Once Labeled as 'Misinformation' Now Are Established Facts
On Sunday, podcast host Joe Rogan addressed the controversy stemming from some recent guests on his program discussing COVID-19 related issues.
His remarks in a video came in response to some artists, like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, removing their songs from Spotify to protest Rogan spreading what they called misinformation about COVID.
The online platform carries “The Joe Rogan Experience,” one of the most popular podcasts in the country, averaging 11 million listeners per episode, according to Newsweek.
Rogan noted much of the controversy seems centered around the appearances of doctors Peter McCullough in December and Robert Malone last month.
McCullough is a Dallas-based cardiologist, who Rogan described as the most published physician in his field in history, while Malone helped invent the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
“Both these people are very highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished people, and they have an opinion that’s different from the mainstream narrative,” Rogan said.
“I wanted to hear what their opinion is,” he added.
Rogan spoke to the accusation that he’s “spreading dangerous misinformation” by having guests like McCullough and Malone on his program.
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“The problem I have with the term misinformation, especially today, is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact,” Rogan explained.
“For instance, eight months ago if you said, ‘If you get vaccinated, you can still catch COVID, and you can still spread COVID,’ you’d be removed from social media” he said. “Now, that’s accepted as fact.”
Rogan observed the same was true regarding promoting the Chinese lab leak theory concerning the origin of COVID-19 or questioning the efficacy of wearing cloth face masks.
One of the main points McCullough made on Rogan’s show in December was that policymakers have focused too singularly on getting people vaccinated while failing to promulgate effective COVID treatment protocols.
McCullough told Rogan, in his opinion, upwards of 85 percent of COVID deaths could have been prevented if patients had been treated earlier.
“Early multi-drug therapy as an outpatient works substantially, and we’ve had a giant loss of life, a giant number, millions and millions of unnecessary hospitalizations,” he said.
Malone, who was banned from Twitter the day before appearing on Rogan’s program, addressed the topic of Big Tech censorship, wondering if he’s not qualified to be in the conversation about sound vaccine policy, who is?
The doctor has come out strongly against children being vaccinated for COVID, arguing the risk of them having complications from the vaccine is greater than contracting the sickness itself.
He has also questioned the wisdom of universal vaccination, given the unknown longterm effects of the vaccines.
In his video, Rogan pointed out that he has also had people on his program who hold to the more widely accepted views about COVID vaccines, like CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Michael Osterholm, a epidemiologist who served as a COVID adviser to then-President-elect Joe Biden.
That said, Rogan pledged to try to have guests with contrary views in closer proximity to each other when dealing with controversial topics like COVID policy.
The host closed saying, “It’s good to have some haters,” because it does force him to reassess, but in the end his main goal remains to have interesting conversations.
