In response to an immense amount of online backlash, podcaster and vaccine skeptic Joe Rogan is trying to get an actual scientist to come on his show and explain why vaccines work.
It doesn’t seem like he’s having much luck.
Last week, Rogan hosted 2024 Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the Joe Rogan Experience, where Kennedy pushed his typical conspiratorial anti-vaccine talking points.
According to Vice, RFK Jr. claimed vaccines cause autism and prattled on about the potentially dangerous levels of mercury in shots.
Kennedy has become a prominent name in the anti-vaccine movement, which exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to the podcast, Dr. Peter Hotez, a noted vaccines scientist, shared his criticism of the show.
On his personal site, Hotez describes himself as an “internationally-recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development.”
To which, Rogan said, “Debate me, bro.”
“Peter, if you claim what RFK Jr is saying is ‘misinformation’ I am offering you $100,000.00 to the charity of your choice if you’re willing to debate him on my show with no time limit,” Rogan posted.
Hotez said Rogan was free to call him any time and discuss. Rogan declared that a non-answer, wanting specifically for Rogan to debate Hotez.
Hotez, though, said he’d be willing to go on the show if he wasn’t going to bring back RFK, since he didn’t want to cause a spectacle.
Given it was happening on Twitter—and crossed over to a number of his hobbyhorses, like free speech, debate, science, and right-wing dudes—it was only a matter of time before Elon Musk weighed in.
“Any scientist who refuses to be questioned is anything but,” he wrote, adding that while he was typically pro-vaccines, there was nothing wrong with asking scientists to show their work.
Rogan also went after Hotez for being a shill for big pharma, to which Hotez noted he released a number of vaccines without patents in third-world countries, blunting big pharmaceutical companies’ ability to profit.
Hotez previously went on Rogan’s show, appearing in April 2020 at the outset of the pandemic.
