Jess Hardiman
Joe Rogan has admitted he’s cringing after being fact-checked about Covid-19, having been proven wrong on his own podcast – admitting he was ‘winging it’ during the debate.
It all started when the podcaster sat down with Australian broadcaster and fellow podcast host Josh Szeps for a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Everything was going well until Rogan began spouting some incorrect information about myocarditis - an inflammation of the heart muscles that can be a side effect of the Pfizer vaccine, but something that is much more commonly a result of contracting the Covid-19 virus.
Rogan boldly stated that myocarditis is a 'common' side effect in children who have had the vaccine, saying: "For young boys in particular, there's an adverse risk associated with the vaccine. There's like a two to fourfold increase in the instances of myocarditis versus hospitalization."
But Szeps cut him off quickly to point out that it isn't true, responding: "You know that there's an increased risk in myocarditis among that age cohort from getting Covid as well - which exceeds the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine."
Rogan interjected: "I don't think that's true. I don't think it's true."
But Szeps remained firm, simply saying: "It is."
A defiant Rogan then got his producer to do a quick search online to settle the debate – although the facts did not work in his favour, as he later admitted on Twitter.
"If anyone was going to make me look dumb on the podcast I’m glad it’s @joshzepps, because I love him, and he’s awesome," Rogan said on Twitter today (14 January), sharing a link to an article that had led to his confusion.
He added: “That video is cringey, but it’s what happens when you stumble in a long form podcast when you didn’t know a subject was going to come up and you wing it.”
The producer had stumbled upon this article from UK-based science journal, The New Scientist, which clearly supported Szeps.
Rogan read aloud during the podcast episode: "[Males aged] 12 to 17, were [most] likely to develop myocarditis within three months of catching Covid at a rate of 450 cases per million infections. This compares to 67 cases of myocarditis per million of the same age following their second dose of Pfizer.”
Szeps then explained: "Yeah, so you're about eight times likelier to get myocarditis from getting Covid than from getting it from the vaccine.”
Rogan seemed to move on fairly swiftly, saying the point was ‘interesting’ before going off on a tangent about fact-checking and finding information on the internet.