What this letter is effectively saying is that you can't share an opinion on anything, even if you have expertise in a field, if it at all goes against the Cathedral.
I don't give a damn if someone is wrong. I listen to people who are wrong all the time because that's the only way to sometimes find out if you are wrong yourself.
If you read the letter from these doctors, which is linked to in the WP article, all it does is assert that Malone's positions are wrong and dangerous. Are they? Is the fact that you can find a variety of doctors to openly disagree with Malone actually worth something?
In actuality, the list of individuals who signed this open letter is padded; I see a nurse practitioner, a science teacher, a PhD student, a medical student, a registered nurse, a nurse practitioner, another registered nurse, a licensed clinical worker... I could go on and on.
So is my ability to listen to people to be dictated by nurse practitioners and med school students? Get real.
When people aren't allowed to hear different opinions or contrary facts, and they aren't supposed to make their own decision that deviates from the mainstream in any way, they are cattle.
Although this was pretty much the only JRE episode I bothered to listen to on Spotify in quite some time, I hope Spotify ignores this tripe.
> So is my ability to listen to people to be dictated by nurse practitioners and med school students? Get real.
Getting real, I would venture that they have a much better understanding of coronavirus than this comedian interviewer.
You're also blowing it way out of proportion: it's not about a nurse dictating who you're allowed to listen to, it's about a group of people that know stuff about medicine being against this popular guy spreading misinformation specifically about vaccinations and covid.
What’s interesting is that in their letter they don’t provide any data to refute what was said, they simply use their profession as a resin they should be listened to. This kind of cancel culture is outrageous. They pretend that Joe Rogan wouldn’t hear their side of the story if they prepared an actual refutation with the data to back it up. Even in the article itself it shows Joe already heard from opposing opinions so why write this letter except to cancel someone they don’t like?
what "cancel culture"? joe rogan is literally being paid millions of dollars by spotify, is constantly being advertised all over their platform, and has millions of listeners. this letter is asking the platform to stop spreading harmful misinformation, not to "cancel" rogan.
per the article, "Rogan, whose show reaches an estimated audience of 11 million people an episode, has repeatedly downplayed the need for coronavirus vaccines and used his platform to flirt with misinformation about covid-19."
We only notice the most obvious instances of cancel culture. Those are attempts to cancel someone popular. If he had an audience of 2 people (or 3 including his mom), nobody would be talking about it now.
>You're also blowing it way out of proportion: it's not about a nurse dictating who you're allowed to listen to
It is however, about them dictating what you can hear:
>the group is pushing for the company to do more to prevent further misinformation from spreading on what is considered the nation’s most popular podcast
> What this letter is effectively saying is that you can't share an opinion on anything, even if you have expertise in a field, if it at all goes against the Cathedral.
Is it? Or is it saying that a hugely popular platform shouldn't amplify false information likely to cause harm?
I don't see any call for government intervention or regulation.
While that's true and an interesting tidbit, for the purpose of this conversation I think you can charitably take parent's meaning to be "the majority believes untrue things all the time, that's not a good basis for deciding what is true and what isn't".
Spotify dropping Rogan won't prevent you from listening to Rogan. They're not asking for the government to censor him, they're asking Spotify to stop publishing and promoting him and providing their implicit endorsement.
> Spotify dropping Rogan won't prevent you from listening to Rogan.
So I shouldn't have a problem with continuing to pay Spotify for removing content I want access to? In what universe should that not concern me? I don't want to go to another platform, because that's precisely why I pay Spotify, so that I have to do that as little as possible.
> all it does is assert that Malone's positions are wrong and dangerous. Are they?
Yes.
To point one not directly related to COVID/vaccines, I was particularly surprised by his claims that strokes in children are zero (and that basically all paediatric strokes are caused by COVID vaccines).
In actual paediatric medicine, stroke is among the top 10 causes of death in children, precisely because people think it doesn't happen, so even though the symptoms are well known, the required medical attention is fatally delayed.
OP could probably have looked that up for themselves if they actually wanted to know who is wrong. Sadly Rogan's show is perfectly pitched at the wilfully ignorant.
It isn't. It shows you different points of view than the ones you read online or hear on TV. Plus the burden of proof is on the scientists and as OP said, they did not cite/refute any specific misinformation.
I'm nit defending Rogan but I am defending my ability to get all viewpoints I can.
Joe Rogan has steered from doing light-hearted interviews to notable individuals to offering pre-chewed, easy-to-digest, sometimes-factual, no-opposing-view interviews on complex and controversial issues.
Somehow Malone didn't have time to put on a paper the claims that got him banned from Twitter. That should be enough food for thought about such claims.
> they did not cite/refute any specific misinformation.
It's an open letter, not a rebuttal. Google Malone fact check for rebuttals, focus only on those by other experts if you want. I just gave above one piece of misinformation that literally kills children, it's easy to verify.
This reminds me of those "scientists" who asserted—with zero evidence—that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin. Not coincidentally, they all turned out to be associated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
I'm more interested in hearing arguments supported by evidence than having blind, lemminglike faith in self-proclaimed experts.
Not a big fan of Rogan, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with people speaking their mind, within legal limits; calls for violence etc. We as a society should exercise our greatest restraint for silencing speech, but we are accelerating the silence.
What if the person continuously says “smoking isnt bad for you. It’s actually great for you” on their podcast that is delivered by Spotify to hundreds of millions?
What about they say something even more egregious like “seatbelt laws are against freedom and they do more harm than good and so we should stand up against them?”
I dont care either way. But i think its not clear.
This position only works under the premise that the Approved Facts never wrong.
Nutrition is a prime example of where the Approved Facts have been wrong and have likely lead to earlier deaths for people and industry lobbies promoting their poisons. All of these supposed "facts" have been widely considered true in my lifetime:
"Don't eat fat because fat just clogs your arteries just like when you pour it down the drain. Eat plenty of low fat foods, and replace saturated fat with industrial seed oils."
"Sugar is just energy you burn off. It's pure calories!"
"Calcium builds strong bones! Therefore, you can never drink enough cow's milk."
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! You shouldn't skip breakfast even if you're not hungry."
"If you don't eat then you'll starve, your body will go into starvation mode, and your metabolism will crash!"
"Salt just raises your blood pressure! Never add salt to your food and only eat things that are low in sodium. The less sodium the better."
"If you eat too much protein then you'll destroy your kidneys. High protein diets are bad for you."
"Distilled water will weaken your bones and you won't get enough minerals! Never drink distilled water."
---
Although attitudes towards such ideas have been changing significantly, in my life I've had teachers, professors, and even doctors tell me these things. And they're all essentially wrong for the average healthy non-elderly person. There was enough scientific data available in my lifetime that authorities should have known better.
The only way that I was able to come to the conclusion that the bulk of generic health advice is wrong was that contrary information was available to me, even though you can almost certainly still find a horde of medical experts to say that I'm wrong.
If I couldn't hear facts and opinions that went against the mainstream, I'd probably still be overweight with prehypertension and possibly prediabetes. By now I'd be in even worse condition.
To say that people should only be allowed to hear the mainstream facts is the same as saying that you should only listen to health advice approved by Coca-Cola.
And yes, to a certain extent, there's natural selection. The idea that you can save everyone from themselves is the same as saying that we can bend the law of averages so that bell distributions no longer apply.
> Eat plenty of low fat foods, and replace saturated fat with industrial seed oils."
How is saturated fat from "industrial" animal farms or "industrial" palm farms any worse than unsaturated fat from "industrial seed oils"?
>"Calcium builds strong bones! Therefore, you can never drink enough cow's milk."
The first part seems true, the second part seems like a strawman just so you can debunk it.
>"If you don't eat then you'll starve, your body will go into starvation mode, and your metabolism will crash!"
Again, first part seems objectively true (unless you can photosynthesize or something), the second part seems like a strawman.
>"Distilled water will weaken your bones and you won't get enough minerals! Never drink distilled water."
The first part seems to be true? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water#Health_effects. All else being equal, you'll get less minerals by drinking distilled water than without. You can certainly adjust/supplement your diet so it's not an issue, but that doesn't mean the effect isn't there. As for the second part, it seems to be either a strawman or a general advice taken out of context. I interpret it not as "not drinking distilled water ever" (like it's poisonous or something), but that there's no real reason to go out of your way to specifically buy distilled water to drink.
I’ve listened to a (very) few Rohan podcasts. He’s not a great interviewer but he has some great guests.
But COVID Rogan is something else entirely. He’s gone pure contrarian conspiracy theorist on everything. Many of the things he’s saying are easily disprovable and his guests are even telling him he’s wrong, but he won’t let it go. It’s sad that this is one of the most popular podcasts out there. Stunning that he’s piping misinformation directly to so many people.
His conspiracies aren’t even logically consistent. For example, he’s a proponent of monoclonal antibodies because he received them, but strictly against the vaccine because he didn’t. He claims “they” are withholding the monoclonal antibodies to drive more people to the vaccine, while shrugging off the fact that both are made by “big pharma” (in some cases the same companies), and that monoclonal antibodies are orders of magnitude more expensive and more difficult to make.
I listened to a lot of Rogan podcasts. Mainly before 2020. It was a different time and the show was a lot more interesting with a range of guests from different backgrounds. The few times I’ve listened post 2021 have all felt a lot more political and conspiratorial. It’s been a sad deterioration of a show I once found entertaining.
It’s worth noting that Rogan used to be deep into moon landing conspiracies. He mentions on his show a few times how he now sees the error of his ways. Perhaps some people just have tendencies for conspiracy and it was only a matter of time before another took hold.
Prior to 2020 he was already peddling 9/11 truth conspiracies, fake moon landing conspiracies, and anti-vax conspiracies. His entire success rests on pushing absurd nonsense to credulous bros to make them feel like they're "in the know".
I've heard a very small handful of clips from Rogan. The two that I heard this week were him talking to someone who disagreed with him, showed him a study, and Rogan still didn't want to admit he was wrong, and another, which I"m told is quite old, where he was going on about some new primates and a primatologist called in to tell him he was wrong and he talked all over her and mocked her credentials.
These may be very rare and cherry picked examples but they still don't make me want to give him any more of my time.
> and that monoclonal antibodies are orders of magnitude more expensive and more difficult to make.
We’re in a global heath crisis and the average people have been convinced that they need to be concerned about big pharma’s “bottom line” instead of doing what’s best for humanity.
Millions of lives are being ruined by pandemic response measures and you’re arguing that we can’t give out life saving treatments because it’s too costly. We’re sacrificing the average person’s (already somewhat poor) quality of life to spare big corporations the cost of making a positive contribution to the world.
In a world where we have political leadership that is deserving of trust these corporations would have had their freedoms trampled first instead the common person. Instead they’re posting record profits while the rest of us suffer.
The hardest thing for me to swallow is millions of people are ok with this and support it! Without any personal gain they’ll preach the good word of our modern oligarchy and shame dissenters. Seemingly out of nowhere “big pharma” can do no wrong and is above reproach.
> We’re in a global heath crisis and the average people have been convinced that they need to be concerned about big pharma’s “bottom line” instead of doing what’s best for humanity.
You know that pharma companies aren't literally paying for their own treatments out of their own pockets, right?
The government and insurance companies are paying the pharma companies to produce these things. It would be the pharma companies' dream come true if the government paid them thousands of dollars for monoclonal antibodies for every patient instead of a < $20 vaccine.
This is what I meant when I said that the conspiracy theories aren't even logically consistent. Baffling that you think the pharmaceutical companies don't want to produce the more expensive drug.
> You know that pharma companies aren't literally paying for their own treatments out of their own pockets, right?
Yes that is my entire point. The average person is paying out of pocket for this pandemic and you’re saying we can’t force corporations to do the same.
I think the intention of the poster before you was to highlight that monoclonal antibodies (likely) actually make more money for big pharma than a course of vaccination. A lot of anti-vaccine rhetoric revolves around vaccines being a big pharma cash grab.
For context, each dose of most of the covid vaccines is about $40 while a round of monocolonal antibody treatment is around $1,500. The vaccine has a dramatic effect in limiting the affects of covid and (as far as I a non-doctor know) stack with monoclonal antibodies if needed. Its just dramatically cheaper if people are vaccinated and not as many people need this treatment.
As of today how many people in (say) the US are actually locked down?
Anyway, what if it just too costly vs. vaccinating early? Rogan says he won't take the vaccine but then takes, like any rich person would, a giant concoction of experimental treatments. That probably doesn't scale when you can have thousands of cases a day in even a relatively small area.
The striking part of your sentence is the exact argument against nationalized healthcare. That is, why are healthy people forced to pay higher rates so that people who don’t take care of their bodies, who are overweight, smoke, don’t exercise, don’t get vaccines, can receive the same coverage at the same price? Heart disease is the number one killer, far exceeding COVID deaths and Unless the country is willing to enact forced exercise, I don’t see why they would enact forced vaccine mandates.
I don't drive on roads on the other side of the country in which I live, but my taxes still go to building them and maintaining them.
This is what it means to live in a country - you pay to raise the overall quality of life for your fellow citizens, which has an uplift effect on you as well.
I've lived in the US and couldn't believe how ghastly, confusing, expensive and irritating the alternative to nationalised healthcare is. Very happy to be back in Australia, and I will cheerfully continue to pay taxes for the benefit of my fellow citizens.
edit: why does an Israeli medical researcher's blog show this:
""It’s been nearly two years now and my confidence in publicly funded science is completely destroyed. I don’t believe anyone reasonably intelligent can read the COVID literature and come out the other side without concluding that universities and governments cannot tell the difference between science and scientism. Our society is completely in the grip of people who have effectively evolved under selection pressure to strongly resemble scientists without actually being scientists. Their work looks roughly right from a distance - there are data tables, charts, equations - but when you sit down and read it the scientific method has gone AWOL. I am now explicitly open to counter-narrative claims I’d never have previously considered."
edit: looking for the actual reference here [0] it appears that it is an embedded quote, not the author. Please confirm for yourselves
This has been my experience. There's still some reputable journals out there, but you have to be really careful. It's amazing though how much absolute BS there is out there in academic papers. I've read so many that started interesting and then as soon as you get into the methods you realize it's all just air. The worst part is, if you don't have a handle on statistics and a fairly high degree of scientific literacy, they really DO look ok (polished even!) at first glance.
Without any context or analysis, this snippet could easily be applied to the surprising (if still 1% of the whole) of scientists who have thrown themselves into the work of pro-virus propaganda, or creating fake studies to boost ivermectin.
Simple common sense comparison of the % of vaccinated people ending up in the hospital with COVID vs unvaccinated ending up in the hospital with COVID is all you need to see the vaccine works.
mAB do work too but only if you test for covid and use it within the first 5 days or at least 10 days of illness.
It’s baffling that anyone thinks a quote from an unnamed “medical researcher” is a logical debunking of all of modern COVID science.
The vaccine unquestionably reduces severe infection, hospitalization, and death. It’s not even a question at this point.
I suppose this is why Rogan’s anti-vaccine conspiracy drivel thrives despite not even being logically self-consistent: There’s an appetite for contrarian information, and those who enjoy this contrarianism will unquestionably absorb anything, no matter how illogical, as long as it’s contrarian.
It would have taken you less time to throw the first sentence into Google and find the source than it would have taken you to write your snarky comment.
> The vaccine unquestionably reduces severe infection, hospitalization, and death. It’s not even a question at this point.
If I may, this claim alone is the rallying cry of the anti vax movement - the original reasons given for emergency use was vaccines prevented infection for 90% of patients.
Anyone who took a quick look at the study knew that was bonkers… the methods obviously (and confirmed in hindsight) weren’t controlled properly and don’t support a reduced infection claim…
So the narrative shifted to preventing hospitalization - so the value given by not getting Covid is gone… you will get covid it just won’t be as bad.
Well now we are in the lottery effect where everyone believes they will be the one to beat the odds…
Here's one - if you're interested, you can continue to look for others...
Absolute Risk Reduction = 1·3% for the AstraZeneca– Oxford, 1·2% for the Moderna–NIH, 1·2% for the J&J, 0·93% for the Gamaleya, and 0·84% for the Pfizer– BioNTech vaccines.
You haven't actually listened because he's 100% for the vax for high risk groups. I'd be really curious how you can "easy disprove" the main themes that come up on his show: natural immunity is better than the vax, big pharma has a long history of lawsuits and criminal penalties for falsifying data, effective treatments do exist, and there's a higher risk profile of the vax than public authorities let on. Those are the big themes, so please, "easy disprove" them?
Per the last one: The FOI lawsuit pertaining to FDA approval (follow Aaron Siri) already revealed in the first 2.5 months of the rollout that Pfzier received 130k case incidents of adverse events. VAERS shows staggering incidents of disability and death, and he's spoken with many physicians who believe there's useful signal from VAERS like there has been for over 30 years. A bunch of countries have now slapped myocarditis warnings on either Pfzier or Moderna. He talks about the 15+ people he knows who have had serious reactions after second dose or booster including his friend's daughter who's now dead. Our family friend here died after booster. The articles about european footballers dropping on the field from cardiac issues (greater than previous 20 years combined) is a signal too. He even had a guest talk about fake vax card going around in Hollywood because many celebrities/people of means don't want to risk it. There's plenty of other statistical or otherwise anecdotal signals that you can hear about if you decide to listen to his show, or you can follow dozens of other people on substacks who track these issues. But please go ahead and disprove all of it.
Rogan is doing this because it makes money and in his mind, there's nothing unethical taking advantage of people who want to listen to conspiracy theories and questionable medical advice. There are a lot of people out there who don't really care, as long as their pockets are lined and they can go to their walled mansion.
The outrage economy, as they call it, is the new cash pump of the post-factual society media. It exercises a remote code execution flaw in human physiology that gets us a little involuntary shot of adrenaline.
Subliminal advertising doesn't work, but this truly does. I wonder if we'll treat it the same way. The FCC issued a warning to broadcasters in 1971:
> We believe that the use of subliminal perception is inconsistent with the obligations of a licensee, and therefore we take this occasion to make clear that broadcasts employing such techniques are contrary to the public interest. Whether effective or not, such broadcasts clearly are intended to be deceptive.
He's a garbage-quality thinker himself, but he's always been great at getting people to let their guard down and start talking and he has pretty good selection of people on his show.
Same here. I used to listen to a lot of episodes and he had super interesting conversations. But the whole covid situation really sent him off the deep end. And the more the "establishment" tries to push back, the more he's digging in.
The last Rhonda Patrick episode was specially hard to watch. I guess it's the last time she's going to be on.
I'm listening more to Lex Fridman these days, even though he's had Weinstein on recently...
> The last Rhonda Patrick episode was specially hard to watch. I guess it's the last time she's going to be on.
That's the only recent one I've tried to listen to, and I agree. You could tell she was trying not to upset Rogan, but she was also completely uncomfortable with what he was saying.
She later posted a long follow-up on her own website to try to correct the misinformation. What a sad situation.
I’d really like to know how “calling out Spotify” is any different from cancel culture. Unless it is specifically your job to spread the truth, I’m not worried one bit if you allow wrong voices to be heard. For instance if the director of the CDC was lying to the public, that would be a scandal, such as if they said they intentionally lied about masks working. But if there was anything middle school teachers have taught us it was that you can’t believe everything you see on the internet or on TV or that a celebrity says. It’s sad really that these people think the public is too stupid to do this and take everything they read with a grain of salt.
“Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, Joe Rogan has repeatedly spread misleading and false claims on his podcast, provoking distrust in science and medicine.”
I don't think they're properly evaluating the distrust created by banning such information. People have far less trust for the pro-vaccine data when they are aware that they do not have equal access to the alternative data. This is amplified when the "misinformation" label is routinely expanded to include not just the contested details, but whole conversations that include things like data directly from the CDC and FDA that other sources do not. Yet the bans are the opposite of surgical.
But I think that the worse thing is that people hear the horror stories by word of mouth, over and over again. I certain have. But in the current environment, where online discussion of those stories is suppressed, they do not hear the frequently convincing and valuable rebuttals, because those are often suppressed too for including the claims they are rebutting.
"Shut up" is not a persuasive rhetorical technique.
> I don't think they're properly evaluating the distrust created by censoring such information.
That's exactly what I was thinking while reading that sentence. Gee, doctors are calling to not provoke distrust in doctors? I'm 100% on the doctors' side in this debate, but I am not part of the group that is being mislead. I can only imagine how this sounds to someone who is not sure about trusting doctors and common news outlets.
The solution is to just do what Doctors are calling for, without attracting unnecessary attention. Not to push back against the reasonable requests for falsehoods to be curtailed.
One of the worst fallouts from the pandemic and the Trump presidency
is the autocratic power that has been seized by a relatively small
group who share a lot of the same political views to be the judge
and jury on what is true.
It has grown from early mild assertion into a politically grounded smug
movement who loves calling out, cancelling, and mocking those who dont
share their world view.
All if that is more or less what you can except for any politically fraction
to seize on. Churches, Guilds whatever is an entity seeking to control speech
The real terror is in the fact that a large part of the population do not only
tolerate it, but to some extent reinforces it and welcomes it.
In times when society is going through something dramatic and frighting
demagogs pop out of their caverns and hope to become the prophet.
For a fraction to decide and dictate to all what is truth may perhaps
start benign but it will metastasize and corrupt into a autocratic
demand for the population to conform unquestionably to the prescribed
dogma.
This is never healthy for society, and the longer it is allowed
to grow. It will grow. This type of dictatorial power does not
reach a steady state, it grows into every crevice of society.
The conflict that arises from society ridding itself of it
can become something similar to a civil war.
In the US today there are two (major) fractions that claim to
hold the truth. If you do not adhere fully with one side,
you will be labelled as a traitor and belonging to the
other side.
This again creates an Overton window where the public is
led to believe that these two views are the only views
that exist. Black and white. Your sports team vs mine.
etc.
This has to stop and the only ones who can stop it are the people.
Thankfully we do not have to live our lives with a radio that
has only one channel (or in this case perhaps two)
We dont have to give our adherence to one or the other.
We can make the choice to ignore them.
First off, I do think he spread less than 100% truth. I also think vaccines works. But...without vaccines death is rather low at around 4%. Had we allow Wuhan variant covid to spread earlier, alpha, beta, delta, omicron, IHG, deltacron, etc would be neglible and tolerable by public as we would have achieve natural herd immunity by now. What the medical professions failed to highlight is 80% has no symptom and recover just like ordinary flu. Most testings done where underreported causing 4% to appear bigger than necessary. Look at Singapore data that do testings very crazily to some extend (though China probably more but less reliable than SG). Death rate is near 0% and severe cases are extremely low for all variants. Also, medical professions are self-censored. There are doctors they differ opinions to general Fauzi-sponsored one and they will be heavily ostracised. Hence if you have these 200+ doctors against Joe, there at least substantial quiet minority doctors for Joe as well but can't voice their opinions. My personal GP also always remind me to take vaccines if the risk of death/complication is higher than risk of vaccines. Chicken pox vaccines and rabies vaccines are good examples. You can opt not to take Chicken pox vaccine and won't matter much in your life except maybe some scars and agingles later on. You need to take rabies vaccine when you got bitten but doesn't meant you should take it every 3mths to be fully protected for all situation. What we are doing now with covid is very excessive. Doctors (hospitals) are being paid by governments for covid patients with almost no upper bound consteaint. It is in their best interest to maintain these revenue even if doctors work to death. Economics. What is missing here is "measured approach". You do things when it is necessary. You escalate when needed and you de-escalate when things improve. What is the point of omicron wave when it is significantly less severe. Why keep reporting infection rates and deleting any mention of 1. ICU cases and 2. Deaths? HPV has 90% infection rates and proven to cause many cancers, but people isn't exactly dying from it like covid or even flu. Why then we didn't do social distancing for HPV which makes Omicron looks like noobs.
> “Though Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, the company presently has no misinformation policy,” the group wrote in the letter
What would a Spotify misinformation policy look like? Who decides what misinformation is?
In March 2020 telling people to wear masks was misinformation. A month later telling people not to wear masks was misinformation. I always prefer receiving my misinformation earlier rather than later.
> What would a Spotify misinformation policy look like? Who decides what misinformation is?
Rogan's misinformation isn't even vague or subtle, it's just completely wrong. His own guests and his own podcast runner even call him out on it in real-time (when they can):
He's pushing blatant nonsense that he picked up from who knows where, and it's not even a question. Much of it can be debunked by literally just checking anything.
I'm willing to take the downvotes on this topic, since anything related to Joe Rogan is controversial but I support the existence of shows like his.
People have trouble understanding why his show is popular and what his role in it is. He's not a news anchor, a public radio host, or a broadcaster attempting to communicate information to the public. He's an approximately regular guy having long form conversations with interesting people.
In conversations people are often wrong and people often say BS things and get called out for it. And Joe Rogan says BS things and gets called out for it. That's not shocking or a gotcha about his show. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
People tune in because they get to sit in on interesting conversations that usually don't have a particular "I came on here to say" agenda. And when the reverse is the case, those episodes are heavily panned and usually those guests are not invited back.
Enjoying this type of media means putting up with plenty of BS from any given side on any given day, and doing one's own research.
If somebody isn't willing to do their own research and is instead prepared to believe anything Joe Rogan or his guests say at face value, then that's a problem for them far larger than anything they might encounter on his podcast.
Isn't the correct answer to this - it depends? Neither side can make a complete blanket statement. It depends on age and which vaccine you take. For example, the risk of myocarditis is higher for ages < 40 and those who receive the Moderna vaccine.
What about the studies in the links I provided? I cited my sources. They clearly show for some groups the risk of myocarditis after vaccination is higher than covid.
Another piece of evidence. We have multiple countries that have significantly altered vaccine doses for young males or have completely prohibited using specific vaccines for certain groups. They cite the increased risk of myocarditis and other heart issues.
Can you please cite your sources? The main study I can think to support your position is the CDC study that used vaers data, but it's highly disputed.
You can't just yell conspiracy at people. You must have evidence.
We are doing real harm to people. I have no doubt in the future there will be federal funded compensation and healthcare schemes for victims. Similar to how we compensate and provide medical care for victims for nuclear related atrocities. My grandpa was one of many harmed while working at a uranium processing facility, after the DOE guaranteed its safety. He basically battled cancer all over his body for decades. I tell this story as an example of government deception, lies and media narratives that led to many many deaths and injuries. We aren't any wiser today than we were back then.
Joe Rogan:
“If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I’ll go no. Are you healthy? Are you a healthy person? Like, look, don’t do anything stupid, but you should take care of yourself. You should — if you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this,”
Also Joe Rogan:
“(I) threw the kitchen sink at it, all kinds of meds, (including) monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-Pak, prednisone — everything. I also got an NAD drip and a vitamin drip, and I did that three days in a row. Here we are on Wednesday, and I feel great.”
You're taking two separate ideas and implying that they are supposed to be somehow consistent when consistency isn't required for either to be correct in some capacity.
By your logic, if a doctor smokes cigarettes, then their health advice to be patients is bunk. Perhaps the same could be said of a fat doctor. That analogy is of course not comparable, but it's similar enough on a judgmental level.
While it don’t necessarily agree with the first statement especially when it comes to the wider public health issue these aren’t contradictory.
Joe isn’t 21 he is in his mid 50’s and although in likely a far better shape than most people at his age and even a large portion of those in their 20’s it’s a different case.
Also his initial statement was about getting a vaccine not about treating the disease.
On an individual case basis the risk of vaccination might be higher than not getting a vaccination (again not claiming it’s true) however as far as the wider public health is concerned reaching herd immunity is important especially when you account for secondary effects like mental health and financial stability which all have an impact on one’s overall health.
Honestly the pandemic really made me think on and reconsider my positions on many issues.
For example I normally i would be for mandatory vaccinations for children and in fact I did and probably still do consider it child abuse if parents refuse to vaccinate theirs.
This however does not line up with the fact that other than for healthcare and social care workers I’m in general against vaccine mandates because I think it’s a step too far. I don’t think that the specific impact in this case is that terrible I just have major concerns when the state can force people to undergo medical procedures against their will.
And as of yet I still haven’t been able to reconcile these two positions. And I don’t know if reasoning like Polio is far worse than COVID is enough to reconcile this.
I mean if this was the Zombie apocalypse would I support the execution of those who won’t get vaccinated? Would we drop napalm on neighborhoods that have a low vaccination rate to save the rest?
I see everywhere epidemiologist and doctors calling for « humility » with covid, since it has shown to be « full of surprises ». Which, to me, looks like another way of saying they got wrong numerous times in the past on how to manage the epidemic.
The fact is, we’ve never had (at least in europe) that many vaccinated people, that many sanitary measures (except for full lockdowns at the very beginning), and yet that many number of cases, as well as that many number of people in hospitals (from delta, since omikron looks much weaker, thanks to nature).
In that context, trying to blame JR for trying to give speech to other medical experts, and have a different opinion on that topic, is really unfair. This should actually be the stance most scientists should take : what did we do wrong, what did we miss, was there something we could have done differently ?
I could see what they are trying to say because I hear the same thing all around me.
I'm in Ontario, Canada. There are regions with 90% vaccinations rate (Toronto) and still the hospitals are full and we are in lockdown. As laymen, people do question whether anyone knows what they're doing.
Toronto has been one of the most compliant cities for masking, social distancing, and vaccines. Even then we are not spared.
What should give you pause: imagine what it could have been like without all those measures. Because they do work, and if in spite of that you have a pretty bad disaster on your hand that translates into being spared from a much worse one.
It appears that the techniques everybody was using to slow the spread of the original virus aren’t working as well for omicron. That doesn’t mean they weren’t a good idea for the original strain.
Vaccines are 100% about trust, since you’re supposed to take them when you’re still healthy.
Could the governments have done more to unsure vulnerable people got it, while at the same time not bypass every core rules western democracies stand on ?
Here’s a few tips :
1- make the EU contracts with pfizer and moderna public (i can’t believe they thought this was a good idea)
2- don’t pretend vaccines are 100% safe, report about side effects, and communicate about ongoing investigations around them. Saying « everything’s fine » when you can easily find online testimonies of people having horrible side effects, is NOT the good approach.
3- admit that there are still unknown unknowns about mRNA vaccines, as there is with every piece of new tech. We still have 0 statistics about >2 years side effects. By definition.
This is an adult way of communicating. It doesn’t rely on fear but rather providing the maximum amount of quality information, so that everyone can make its own decision about their own health.
> 2- don’t pretend vaccines are 100% safe, report about side effects, and communicate about ongoing investigations around them. Saying « everything’s fine » when you can easily find online testimonies of people having horrible side effects, is NOT the good approach.
This was and is being done. Anti vaxxers are aware and are making plentiful use of the open data sharing being done by governments and researchers on vaccine risks.
For instance, the J&J vaccine rollout was paused in the USA due to an extremely rare side effect - costing lives in the vain hope of making people feel that the government was being cautious and safety-focused. In other countries such as Australia, government scientific committees delayed the rollout of vaccines such as AstraZeneca to certain populations out of fear of side effects as well. Governments have published statistics and discussed the myocarditis and pericarditis risk from mRNA vaccines.
Unfortunately in the age of the internet, people aren’t actually reading hundred page papers and getting degrees in statistics to evaluate published risks of myocarditis or blood clots - hearing their favorite podcaster bring in a guest who warns the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus is enough to convince an antivaxxer to stay in danger.
> We still have 0 statistics about >2 years side effects. By definition.
It’s equally true that we have zero statistics about the side effects of the virus after two years… what is known is that vaccine side effects typically occur within 60 days of administration. Just like we have no data the Sun will rise next morning , but we assume the laws of physics keep working because they always have worked that way.
> 2- don’t pretend vaccines are 100% safe, report about side effects, and communicate about ongoing investigations around them. Saying « everything’s fine » when you can easily find online testimonies of people having horrible side effects, is NOT the good approach.
This was done. I've got an Apple News+ subscription which lets me read several mainstream newspapers and they all had extensive coverage of side effects, and followed the investigations on them.
I don't think that comment was implying those measures are to blame for rising deaths. I think it was to argue that they haven't had the impact they were expected to have.
When 30%+ of the population is actively working to undermine measures that require high levels of compliance to work -duh- they don't work as well.
Moreover, the new variant is literally the 2nd most contagious disease out there, with a R0 of about 12 vs about 3 for the original variant, second only to measles. Of course numbers will become similar even with some of the population vaccinated.
Just do the math.
Two shots mRNA vaccine is about 25% effective at preventing cases, 3 shots about 75%, and both are around 90% effective at preventing hospitalization, and 98% effective at preventing death.
About 65% of the US population is 2-shots vacinated and 20% 3-shot vaccinated. The majority of the cases is in the minority of the unvaxed population, and 90% of the hospitalization and deaths are.
So, you are literally complaining about the exact opposite of what you state.
What is failing is not the measures, but the lack of measures.
What is disappointing is that bad takes like this have prevented leaders from actually taking any serious steps this wave.
You're right, he is wrong. But you're also wrong. Intramuscular vaccination only will never prevent sars-cov-2 infection or spread. Just like it doesn't with influenza a. It isn't just about people not getting vaccinated. The problem is that we're not following up the intramuscular vaccination with an intranasal vaccination booster.
Intramuscular vaccination for upper respiratory aerosol viral diseases does protect your internal body from serious disease. It does that partially with antibody neutralization (via B cells) and with variants, mostly with cross reactive T cells which kill any of your infected cells.
But those B and T cells are in the body serum immune compartment. The serum igG antibodies generated by intramuscular vaccination do seep into your lower lungs a bit and provide protection. But they barely get into the upper respiratory surface tissues (mucosa) and for less than a couple months even at those low levels. And none of the T cells (or B cells making antibodies) become resident in the upper respiratory tissues where infection happens.
This means the upper respiratory mucosa immune compartment can and is still infected and spreads sars-cov-2. Even if sars-cov-2 has 70x less chance of killing you now. It means that tests for infection in the nose/throat/etc will return positive. And it means the intramuscularly vaccinated can and do spread sars-cov-2 and have to wear N95/ffp2 masks like everyone.
The intramuscular vaccination is only the FIRST STEP. The second is intranasal vaccination so that there are tissue resident B and T cells in the upper respiratory mucosa to prevent infection and spread.
It's incredibly frustrating to me (and probably others in the know) that no institutions or governments have acted on this well known historical fact (been known since the 1960s). If we go based off the time it took governments to realize everyone needs to be wearing a proper fit mask with no gaps then they should realize the value of intranasal vaccines about 2 years from now.
YES. I fully agree that the measures are insufficient AND that addition of intranasal vaccines to those measures would be even better.
The greater measures we should be taking was out of scope; I was merely trying to show that the other complaint saying 'why bother with measures when they don't work' is entirely in the wrong direction -- the fact that this vastly more infectious variant is producing wave similar in scope to the original and Delta waves shows that the measures ARE working -- without them, this more infectious strain would be far worse.
If you're plan relies on 100% compliance, it's bound to fail.
The second and third worlds have far lower vaccination rates. The new omicron variant did not come from the US but from South Africa. We cannot control how well they choose to vaccinate. We can scarcely control it here.
I don't give a damn if someone is wrong. I listen to people who are wrong all the time because that's the only way to sometimes find out if you are wrong yourself.
If you read the letter from these doctors, which is linked to in the WP article, all it does is assert that Malone's positions are wrong and dangerous. Are they? Is the fact that you can find a variety of doctors to openly disagree with Malone actually worth something?
In actuality, the list of individuals who signed this open letter is padded; I see a nurse practitioner, a science teacher, a PhD student, a medical student, a registered nurse, a nurse practitioner, another registered nurse, a licensed clinical worker... I could go on and on.
So is my ability to listen to people to be dictated by nurse practitioners and med school students? Get real.
When people aren't allowed to hear different opinions or contrary facts, and they aren't supposed to make their own decision that deviates from the mainstream in any way, they are cattle.
Although this was pretty much the only JRE episode I bothered to listen to on Spotify in quite some time, I hope Spotify ignores this tripe.