Joe Rogan and Sanjay Gupta
CNN's row with Joe Rogan over his use of Covid-19 treatments took a twist on Wednesday when the network's chief medical correspondent went on Rogan's podcast and was confronted about the network's 'lies'.
Popular American podcaster Joe Rogan is a Covid vaccine skeptic and used an unproven therapeutic regimen when he contracted Covid-19 in late August. Among other things, he took the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. CNN reported that he used "a horse dewormer," which he insists is a lie, since he took the version of the drug for human use after it was prescribed by a doctor.
On Wednesday, the podcast host had the opportunity to raise the issue with CNN' top medical reporter, Sanjay Gupta, who was not able to defend his network's 'horse dewormer' claims."They shouldn't have said it was horse dewormer," Gupta readily acknowledged, seemingly eager to change the topic. But Rogan persisted.
"Does it bother you that the news network you work for... outright lied about me taking horse dewormer?" he said.
"They should not have said that," Gupta replied. He admitted he didn't ask anyone at CNN about their coverage, and that he probably should have done so before appearing on Rogan's show. He did not, however, agree with Rogan when he said CNN reported on his illness "with glee."
Ivermectin has become a point of heated debate in what is seen by many as a 'culture war' surrounding Covid-19 and vaccines. Many people who are hesitant to be vaccinated for Covid-19 see the drug as a treatment or prophylactic for the disease, though so far there is no official medical evidence to support this.
The spike in demand for ivermectin reportedly caused shortages, and some people eager to take it tried the veterinary version, for which they were branded by many Covid vaccine enthusiasts as 'antivax' idiots taking a 'horse dewormer' for the coronavirus.
While this likely did little to change the minds of ivermectin users about coronavirus vaccines or to foster 'national unity', this type of coverage seems to have fans in the newsrooms, as evidenced by the swift spread of a
fabricated story about ivermectin overdose victims overflowing the emergency rooms in an Oklahoma hospital, which could have been easily debunked from the start by a reasonably competent journalist.
Rogan was widely cheered by conservative-leaning people on Twitter for calling out CNN over its role in smearing ivermectin, and for how this episode explains why the public does not trust the mainstream media.
Gupta went on 'The Joe Rogan Experience' - "into the lion's den," as he jokingly
put it - with the goal of convincing him to take the vaccine. Rogan believes that people at high risk from the disease, like those over a certain age or with comorbidities, should definitely take the vaccine. But younger, healthy people, and especially children, may be better off without it, considering the rare cases of severe side effects from the vaccines and the lack of long-term research into their effects.
Gupta's mission was apparently a failure, as he reported to his network, but the three-hour program had plenty of interesting discussions about Covid-19, vaccines, and other medical topics.
Rogan asked Gupta about why he changed his attitude to medical cannabis, which apparently won the CNN correspondent a great deal of respect from the show's host.
They also had a lengthy debate over gain-of-function research on pathogens, and the possibility that Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the US president, may have a conflict of interest when it comes to this. Fauci is treated as a revered figure, someone beyond reproach, by news outlets like CNN among others.
Reader Comments
I would recommend everyone watch it. In fact, any time anyone is upset with something they read about either Rogan himself or a guest of his show, I tell them to stfu unless they watched it. These aren't 2 minute CNN interviews. You may need 15 minutes of context around the "offensive thing" that happened.
Rogan isn't a god (and anyone who thinks he is is as dumb as the people who think he's satan), he's a very inquisitive and honest human who talks to people who know the answers to the questions he has. I've watched his opinions evolve in the mere 4 years I've been watching him.
But it was fun to watch Rogan lean into Gupta on Ivermectin and make him squirm.
That's so fucked up dude.
I mean, like an hour ago, my mom showed me a video of white boer (afrikaans/africans) kind of guys running around in circles in the desert. And the narrator was like "The guptas are driving in circles". In the desert. With broken cars. But they weren't indian. Urapeons.
I swear it's the beset (maybe) game I've ever played.
So I get to either choose to be necro, have this super faithful partner (which is anyone/everyone) who gives me shit, or I get like 15% faster than anyone else martial sort of skills. Holy shit dude, how am I supposed to choose between that?
If you like, turn that newspaper around, place on your back. Shave a little...maybe hey?
[Link]
Surely you're not that much different?
Plasma shotgun.
But then I saw Rogan peddling bullshit in like the 2nd or 3rd sentence. Oh, and the writer of this article too.
Uh...apparently he doesn't know how to play baseball, either. That's unfortunate. Looks like everyone involved ISN'T going home.
But yes, that should be the first line of defense, with experimental gene therapy being a distant second, especially DURING the pandemic. You know, like how they give flu shots prior to flu season because they don't do nearly as much good during flu season.
I take zinc when I have to and avoid it when I don't. I learned this year that one of the first things zinc ruins for me is the taste and smell of black pepper. I had another supplement that had 25mg zinc in it and after a couple weeks I couldn't figure out what this terrible taste on all my food was. But I'll suffer the taste consequences if I'm getting sick anyway.
Covid might not be the plague, but it does exist and is often fatal to vulnerable populations, just like the flu, except SARS-Cov-2 isn't respiratory, it's vascular, which is why it kills who it does. Unfortunately, America is fat and stupid which makes us extra vulnerable. Especially when you have state health authorities saying things like "losing weight is hard, so why don't you just get your vaccine instead? Even the author of the Spartacus letter details what Covid 19 is and does.