Sanjay Gupta described his three hour appearance on the Joe Rogan Podcast as walking into the Lion’s den. The focus in conservative circles was on Rogan pressing Gupta on CNN broadcasting that Rogan was taking Horse De-wormer, referring to his use of Ivermectin to recover from COVID-19 infection. However, other key issues were also covered which I felt lacked the same coverage.
Medical Marijuana:
Rogan opened by complimenting Sanjay Gupta on reversing his previous stance on medical marijuana. Gupta had previously suggested up until 2013 that the use of marijuana had no medicinal benefits that outweighed the harm. Rogan commended him for being a “real-thinking person” in his assessment. Gupta expressed that it was an illuminating experience for him. When he initially was researching the issue, 94% of papers explored whether there was no harm to it, rather than was there a benefit. He comments that most funded studies were looking for harm, rather than benefit. He expanded his research to other countries that were investigating cannabis for medical uses, including for easing refractory seizures in children. He reflects that when he wrote the article detailing his reversal, he admitted to wondering what the response to his reversal would be. Gupta briefly reflects on how alcohol affects the brain as opposed to marijuana is interesting as he calls alcohol a “sledgehammer” to the brain.
Scientists are Arrogant
Gupta refers to a study that says scientists are increasingly perceived as arrogant, which bothered him. He laments a general rule that scientists are arrogant and how that narrative is troubling in the sense of a pandemic where people don’t want to listen to them. Rogan comments on how someone who may be discussing something they’ve spent a lot of time studying, while others haven’t, can become arrogant and it’s easy to appear arrogant to stifle the opinions of those that don’t agree with you. Rogan uses this to transition to talking about White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, where things are increasingly tense and antagonistic. Rogan brings an interesting point here. From my perspective, we are increasingly seeing a media where if you ingest conservative news you see a vastly different feed than someone that may ingest liberal news. There are very few places where you can get access to the full spectrum of what is happening. They both agree that things are becoming more and more politicized. Gupta brings up a very interesting point that COVID is the “novel” coronavirus and people categorize things according to their own views when it comes to things that are relatively unknown. COVID-19 had no box to belong to. Gupta relates this back to his AC repair man who asked him about vaccines. He and his family had been unvaccinated and his daughter recently died, telling her father to get vaccinated before she was put on the ventilator. “Am I going to get pissed off by the anti-vaxxers after spending time with that guy? There are some people that want to start shit…but this guy? He wants to do it. He understands the consequences of not. He just watched the consequences that happened to his daughter. We’ve got to communicate that to people… If you’re going to ask people to get boosters…ask kids to get vaccinated… you have to explain it well.” Gupta fails to explain it well or challenge Joe Rogan effectively. Is this what happens when talking heads that receive virtually no push-back then go on a show where the person they’re speaking to doesn’t hang onto every word?
COVID Vaccines for Children
Rogan questions whether kids should be vaccinated, whether there a real studies on COVID’s impact on young kids. Most children dying from COVID as well as adults, have pretty extreme comorbidities (underlying conditions). They go into a discussion of whether young boys ranging from 16-24 face a higher risk of myocarditis/adverse reactions from the vaccine rather than from COVID. Gupta says you have to understand what the background rate of myocarditis is (1500 per million). They found .8 per million for first shot and that rate jumps closer to 6 per million for the second shot. Next must be considered the rate of myocarditis from COVID and that it is 16x higher than with the vaccine. Those with a strong robust immune response can get myocarditis. He also points out that all those with myocarditis were treated. Rogan suggests that we don’t know the long term effects of myocarditis in young people when these same young people would have most likely been fine if they were infected COVID. This is where their disagreement starts. Gupta points to long haul COVID, 33% of people having symptoms that last months and that measuring in terms of life and death shouldn’t be the only metric. Joe Rogan is not a scientist, but there are respected medical professionals, such as Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins, that make the case that only children with known comorbidities should be vaccinated.
Should we be making decisions based on the smaller % of people having long-term symptoms? Is it a consequence of their personal unhealthy decisions?
Rogan brings up particular cases of young people being hospitalized after vaccination and that it is a legitimate concern when you’re discussing outcomes of also contracting COVID. Gupta admits not knowing what the virus does to the body, it is novel, and we’re still learning. Organs are affected by the blood and the idea that the blood is affected by this virus is scary. He discusses the risk vs reward for vaccinating children. Gupta recommends looking at the data for vaccine vs the disease and to not take his word for it and also “keep in mind that you can still be perpetuating the pandemic by spreading this virus”. Rogan states that vaccinated people can get and spread COVID, like happened at the comedy store. Gupta states that you’re 8x less likely to be infected if you’ve been vaccinated. “If you do get infected, you’re right you can still carry the virus… and transmit it… but study out of Singapore says your viral load comes down much faster.” Gupta does not effectively make the case for vaccinating children against COVID-19. As I’ve written previously, the decision to vaccinate children should be one left to parents and their child’s doctor. COVID-19 is not a childhood disease in the league of polio or small pox and does not pose nearly the same level of risk to a child.
Boosters:
Gupta suggests that when you have such high numbers of vaccinated people in the population, it makes sense that more people in the hospital will be vaccinated. Those who tend to still be hospitalized while vaccinated tend to be older and immunocompromised. In discussing the two individuals at the FDA resigning over the Biden Admins plan for boosters, Gupta makes the criticism that the announcement by Biden surrounding booster shots should have been from a health agency, and not the Biden administration. Gupta criticizes the administration for putting a date on this plan roll out and that this should have been data driven and communicated. He also says that the FDA and CDC were not even a part of the discussion with the Coronavirus task force and were blindsided by this decision. Gupta remarks that he feels that if he got breakthrough COVID he would most likely be fine based on his feeling that the vaccine was working. Rogan here interjects to compare that feeling to what other people might feel as their reasoning to not get vaccinated, as in his own anecdotal case where he instead chose to medicate with vitamins, ivermectin, and monoclonal antibodies. He asks why it’s okay to have that feeling if you’ve been vaccinated and not okay if you’re unvaccinated, especially for those young people not wanting to receive a vaccination?
Rogan asks what the argument is against just vaccinating vulnerable people and not having across the board vaccination? Gupta points to the narrower window of transmitting a breakthrough and to the 8x less likely to contract the virus while vaccinated. He argues that many childhood vaccines also includes multiple schedules and boosts but the question is who needs the boosters and what the interval is. Rogan follows up with a question on what the long term effects of boosters are and whether there is data on more shots. Gupta replies that there is no long-term data, we know what the vaccine does in the body. Gupta acknowledges we may not know the long-term effects without a doubt in 5-10 years but that overall we have a long history of vaccines in this country, and if people have side effects, they typically occur in 42 days and that’s why they waited 2 months for these safety studies to say it was enough to roll out the vaccine. He emphasized that 6 billion shots have been given, real world data, to make the case that this is one of the most studied therapeutics on the planet.
They then go into the odds of whether an unvaccinated child is less at risk than a double vaccinated healthy adult. Gupta does not address this point sufficiently to satisfy a person skeptical of vaccinating their child. Gupta believes having antibodies as a general rule makes you safer than not and that it’s not just about life and death and points again to the long haulers. Rogan suggests that "your attitude about not being concerned because you have antibodies and that you’d get through even with a breakthrough infection, that’s the same attitude a young person has because their afraid of the consequence of a vaccine…the same attitude you have where you’re not worried about catching it… Why is that okay for you versus a child?”. Gupta suggests a kid can get sick and, despite breakthroughs in adults, the breakthrough is not common. He seems to repeatedly fall back on this but not address the point Rogan is making and suggests it’s not a reason for children to not be vaccinated. Gupta is not aware of the study that suggests a child is more likely to be hospitalized by the adverse affects of the vaccine as opposed to the disease. Rogan pulls up the article and suggests a parent would be hesitant to vaccinate a child that would most likely cruise through COVID, specifically if they were healthy boys. Gupta tries to address this data by pulling up data around myocarditis from the vaccine versus the disease, but the data clearly covers all ages, not the age range of boys Rogan is pointing out. Gupta then talks about the fact that young people can still catch and spread the disease, and spread it at a higher rate than if they were vaccinated (8x less likely to spread when vaccinated, if there is a breakthrough infection). Further, asymptomatic spread was responsible for the majority of spread.
Adverse Effects
Rogan comments that he knows one person in their twenties who had two heart attacks and a stroke four days after the vaccine. Rogan asks if it’s possible that the vaccine was injected improperly into a vein and caused these rare instances of horrific side effects. Gupta says there was a study recently that stated when injecting the vaccine, you have to aspirate a little bit. This means after the needle enters the skin, the person administering the vaccine briefly pulls back the plunger at the tip. If the needle is in a vein, the syringe will draw up droplets of blood, a visible clue to remove the needle before injecting the vaccine. Rogan asks if there is a site that is better for injecting. Rogan also cites personal anecdotes and a study that people who had already gotten COVID were more likely to have a severe reaction to the vaccine than people who have not have COVID. This is why, Gupta says, some companies have started only giving 1 shot to someone who’s previously been infected. This brings them to discuss how you still need two shots to be considered vaccinated. Gupta agrees that this should change.
Therapeutics: Monoclonal Antibodies, Merck, Pfizer
Gupta remarks that he has not seen data other than from the company and they talk about how it’s healthy to be skeptical in that case because the companies have incentives to hide bad side effects and they’ve been busted before, Pfizer fined 2.3 billion for fraudulent marketing, pleading guilty to violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act with their drug BEXTA. He remarks when they first said it was 95% effective and it took very little time, he had to do homework and dig deep. With regards to Merck, if the data holds up beyond the Merck data, it would be more effective than Tamiflu is for the flu. They get into a discussion regarding risk. The virus is . 5% lethal, which basically means 1 in 200 people will die from it whereas other people would say with 99.5% data, they are safe. It very much depends how the data is framed to people.
Natural Immunity:
Rogan mentions the calamity of nurses being fired that were likely previously exposed to COVID and cites an Israeli study that natural infection is 6-13x more effective than immunity imparted by the vaccine. He asks why they would do this? Gupta says this action surprises him and that historically those with natural immunity are recognized as having strong protection. Gupta says we still don’t do enough testing to know whether they have immunity and some of the antibody tests are good and some are not and we still don’t have a good vision of how widespread the immunity is. He also states that healthcare workers with experience treating the disease should be treating it. Gupta states that if someone can demonstrate that they have immunity, it should be worth something, but we still don’t have enough testing. An over the counter test is not as reliable as one you can get at the hospital. Gupta thinks sites with vaccination should also conduct antigen and antibody tests. An antigen test would tell you whether you are contagious. Gupta tries to convince Rogan to get one shot of the vaccine and even admits his immunity is very good. Rogan jokes he’s probably the only one that is glad he got better.
Later on towards the last hour of the podcast, Gupta returns to natural immunity to try to get Joe Rogan to get vaccinated. He states that we don’t have good data on how long natural immunity lasts and Joe Rogan responds that we don’t have good data on how long the vaccine immunity lasts. Gupta responds that effectiveness against waning disease is lower but not against severe outcomes. Rogan points to SARS-COV-1, which COVID 19 has similarities to, and that people still have immunity to that disease 17 years later. Gupta comments that Rogan is not an anti-vaxxer as people portray him as, rather he thinks most people that are vulnerable should become vaccinated and laments that millions of people listen to him and take his advice as if he’s a doctor. He thinks people should listen to people like Sanjay Gupta, Bret Weinstein, and Pierre Kory.
Fauci and Ecohealth: COVID Origins
The Wuhan Institute of Virology worked with the Ecohealth Alliance, on gain-of-function research, essentially making viruses more deadly. It was learned that grants were provided by Fauci and NIAID to fund Ecohealth, which used the money for such research. This grant included sub-awards to Wuhan Institute of Virology. Gupta comments that it is concerning we don’t know the origins of the virus, concerning that they did this research on bats. What has been suspicious to Gupta is that there has been no investigation of the lab leak theory. There was a database that went down and workers that got sick. Blood samples of the sick were not released and we were not allowed to access the lab. China had been buying PPE in earlier 2019 than we had been informed of the virus circulating, as I wrote previously based on my reading of Scott Gottlieb’s Uncontrolled Spread. Gupta is not sure if the disease is manufactured but there needs to be a health organization that needs to be able to enforce things, but the WHO is too beholden to China.
Masks: Are they effective?
Rogan asks Gupta if masks are effective after Gupta whips out a mask sold on the Joe Rogan podcast website, joking that the masks are made in China. Gupta thinks that they can be beneficial and that unfortunately people think they’re a panacea. Rogan brings up a doctor that vapes through the masks that argues they are not effective because all of the smoke comes out every side of the mask. Gupta remarks that cloth masks are not as good. Gupta starts laughing at the video, asking where Joe finds this stuff. It’s a truly enjoyable watch to see the doctor let loose and laugh. He says it is not perfect but that it offers some protection and that people should wear KN-95 masks, which have electrostatically charged particles. “If you’re going to be wearing a mask, they should be wearing a high quality mask.” The person wearing the mask is more likely to keep from spreading it versus protect the person wearing it, a point I think is lost on many people that hurry to put one on when an unmasked individual walks near them.
COVID Variants: How much different is it?
Rogan mentions that the vaccine was developed around the original alpha virus. Gupta says the other variants don’t look as bad as Delta, which appears to be more contagious than the others.
Ivermectin:
Joe Rogan was in the news for taking the controversial treatment, Ivermectin, known for its anti-parasitic uses in humans as well as being used to de-worm horses. These two medicines are not one and the same and so the characterization of ivermectin as a horse de-wormer to smear Rogan is different than the argument that ivermectin, for humans, is an unproven treatment for COVID-19. Some argued that it is indeed a horse de-wormer and thus is a factual argument, and it is on a technicality, but semantics are important when discussing complexities and CNN took the dishonest route, and one that is unhelpful in the long-term to convince them that they are honestly reporting. Those who are fervently defending CNN and its characterization are likely those people that have had as many jabs as they are allowed to. Indeed, there are likely those that wished for Rogan’s death. A popular thread on reddit is known as the Herman Cain Award, a sadistic cheering of those who did not heel to the medical establishments recommendations to be vaccinated, or who underestimated their own susceptibility to the novel coronavirus and did not practice precautionary NPI’s (non-pharmaceutical interventions, i.e,. social distancing) whilst the vaccine was being developed. The award was recently highlighted by Slate in an article published on September 21st, 2021, titled “The Unbelievable Grimness of HermanCainAward, the Subreddit That Catalogs Anti-Vaxxer COVID Deaths”. Herman Cain did not take the necessary precautions and downplayed the risks of the virus, and eventually succumbed to the disease. Those that are hospitalized but do not die are simply nominated until they die.
"It's a lie on a news network ... that's a lie that they're conscious of. It's not a mistake," Rogan said to Gupta on his show. "They're unfavorably framing it as veterinary medicine." "Do you think that's a problem that your news network lies," Rogan asked. "Dude, they lied and said I was taking horse de-wormer." I CAN AFFORD PEOPLE MEDICINE MOTHERFUCKER
Gupta admitted to Rogan that CNN should not have referred to it as horse de-wormer. ”If you got a human pill, because there were people who were taking it, the veterinary medication, and you're not obviously because you got it from a doctor, so it shouldn't be called that." Indeed, many people were taking the horse paste version sold in livestock stores. Many medications are commonly prescribed to both humans and animals alike, albeit dosages are vastly different, a reason many who stupidly consumed the horse version got very ill.
After his appearance on the Podcast, Gupta appeared on Don Lemon’s show where both gaslit the country by suggesting that the original reporting was not incorrect. Confronting Gupta, Gupta is unable to muscle the courage to defend Rogan on CNN in the way he admitted the fault on the Joe Rogan podcast. Lemon stated that Joe Rogan “did say something about ivermectin that I think wasn’t actually correct about CNN and lying. Ivermectin is a drug that is commonly used as a horse de-wormer. So it is not a lie to say that the drug is used as a horse de-wormer.” Viewers that ingest CNN and mainstream news likely didn’t flinch hearing this, but to anyone that looks at it objectively, this is a manner of manipulation by the media that demonstrates why they’ve lost the trust of the American people.
“You’re working for a news organization. If they’re lying about a comedian taking horse medication, what are they telling us about Russia? What are they telling us about Syria? Do you understand that’s why people are concerned about the veracity of the media?”
Shortly after his appearance, USA Today published a piece entitled Joe Rogan, Who says he was almost vaccinated, tells others ‘get vaccinated and then get sick’. Any viewer watching this could see from his tone that we was being sarcastic when he said "It would be better to get the virus and recover and have amazing immunity," Rogan said on the podcast. "You know what I think you should do? I think you should get vaccinated and then get sick. This is why: because then you got the vaccine protects you from a bad infection and then you get COVID so then you get the robust immunity that's imparted from having the actual disease itself." Rogan’s problem is that he defies big government orthodoxy and it makes people uncomfortable that he is a thinking person that can make decisions for his own body and assess his own risk. More than that, even though he was clearly being facetious in his tone, the science is saying these things. Just look at this recently published piece in Australia’s Daily Telegraph.
It is true that Ivermectin has not definitively been proven or accepted by the scientific community to treat COVID. The question of whether ivermectin is effective in treating COVID and whether the reporting on Joe Rogan is accurate are not mutually exclusive. CNN did a disservice by not acknowledging their misstep to take a step towards regaining trust, but they likely didn’t lose the trust of anybody who already clung to their network for news. Those who are watching Joe Rogan for information are not likely the same people watching CNN, a reason Gupta used to go on Joe Rogan, to reach people he may not while at CNN. Fortunately, Gupta won’t have to encounter many thinking people that are watching CNN to spot the difference.
They move onto discussing Uttar Pradesh, a State in India, where they began handing out Ivermectin widely among the population, included in a kit as a prophylactic or if they got COVID. They’ve essentially knocked COVID incidence down to zero. Gupta looked at the study and spoke to doctors in India. He remarks that there is one part of the trial to use it in people that had COVID, which makes it very hard to know whether it was knocking down the rate, since it was after the fact. Another group got it as a prophylactic and what you saw was a significant decline in cases that was already happening when they started doing it and there’s no way to tell whether it’s correlation or causation. He suggests the virus burned through the population, including killing his uncle. When there is a significant spread, you get a fair amount of natural immunity. Gupta looked at the meta-analysis maintained by Pierre Kory, a widely known endorser of the use of ivermectin in treatment of COVID-19. The website even states “While many treatments have some level of efficacy, they do not replace vaccines and other measures to avoid infection.” Thus, it is is incorrect to suggest that scientists pushing ivermectin are anti-vaxxers, but rather in favor of a non-blanket approach to treating a disease, especially when breakthrough’s may still hospitalize a population, as no preventative or treatment is 100% effective.
Gupta took a look at a few of the analyses done in the labs to figure out what dose of ivermectin was anti-viral, and they found that there were pretty high doses that were needed. The problem with the study cited by Pierre Kory is they were also receiving the dexamethasone so it’s tough to attribute the results of the study solely to Ivermectin, as dexamethasone IS used widely already in treatment of COVID patients as an effective treatment, along with prednisone. To knock down the inflammatory response of the disease can work. Doses found in the lab on Ivermectin will need to be higher than those done in a lab or administered for it’s intended uses and that the vaccine has more data behind it. These higher doses can potentially be harmful. Gupta even perhaps slips and calls the COVID-19 shot a therapeutic as opposed to the vaccine, a description that I believe is a more honest one, as vaccinations typically prevent infection of a disease, whereas the COVID shot is marketed more as something that will reduce spread and severity of symptoms.
Vaccination and Lifestyle Choices
He talks about how he just wanted to catch COVID and then recover because he was healthy, takes care of himself, and would most likely be fine. He also states many people take that approached. Gupta remarks that he is a healthy person but most people aren’t. Rogan says people should get healthy and we should encourage them to get healthy to prevent a lot of things like heart disease. 95% of people that die from COVID have four or more comorbidities. We are telling people that the injection of a vaccine is a band-aid on one problem, but the overall metabolic health is poor. People are not exercising, drinking water, taking vitamins or making healthy choices, which are not encouraged as much by the government. Gupta remarks 42% of the country is obese or morbidly obese and the risk of severe COVID is 4-5x higher. Rogan wants the President and others to tell people to take care of themselves, not just for COVID but as a frontline defense for everything. Gupta believes that, in an acute crisis, it’s not going to rapidly stop the transmission as quickly as vaccination. Gupta states the statistic that you are 113% more likely to end up in the ICU if you are obese. Gupta points to the nuance of these discussions that you can’t shame people that are obese, which is not the same as encouraging people to be a healthy weight. Gupta and Rogan agree on the point that telling people that they are obese is not the same as shaming them and talk about what you’ve eaten in the morning can affect how you react to the disease if you catch it later that night. Gupta says the wealthier countries were hit harder than poor countries with COVID. Wealthy countries are more likely to overeat and be an unhealthy weight. He mentions that COVID may be more likely to stick around longer in people with more fat cells.
The Media:
“People think I hate CNN. I don’t. Look, I think news organizations have a very specific function in our society. It’s a very important function. It’s to inform people… When they lie about things like that it’s so pointless to me… We already have the highest level of distrust in media… I don’t know if it’s because of Trump or people exposing parts of the news that weren’t accurately depicted… I have a great deal of respect for journalism. There’s an issue today where too much emphasis is put on ratings.”
Rogan remarks that for the most part Fox News and CNN report the news, but they get ideologically conflicted to sell clicks to get people to tune in, which is dangerous and foolish because it changes the way people view the news. Gupta agrees with Rogan that the news has changed and become opinion based and editorialized.
Leaky Vaccines:
Vaccines that leak and select for stronger viruses are then discussed because the vaccine targets a specific protein and propagates. Gupta says if not enough people are immune, more variants can arise, but if the idea is that more people have immunity to the original variant, ultimately slowing the spread would bring this under control. Rogan asks whether viruses mutate into more spreadable but less dangerous viruses? Gupta agrees that this is what viruses do. Viruses don’t want to kill their hosts but want to spread easily.
Rogan is asking questions and open to being wrong. We need more people like Joe Rogan in all walks of life and the way that these two interacted, portrayed otherwise by the media’s clipping, is truly the way forward for free discussion in this country.