The Joe Rogan Experience - #1718 - Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a practicing neurosurgeon, chief medical correspondent for CNN, and host of the network's podcast "Chasing Life." His new book, "World War C: Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic and How to Prepare for the Next One," is available now.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. What's up? How are you? I am delighted to be here, Joe. I'm delighted to have you. Thanks for reaching out, man. It's nice to talk to you. It's been nice to get to know you. You too. You too. Thanks. Are you enjoying Texas?

Yeah. You know, it's funny. I hadn't been to Austin in some time, and it's changed in a really good way. I was staying at a hotel downtown, walking around, tons of cool restaurants. And I guess Austin City Limits has their little stage that's downtown. Yeah. There was a big thing going on there last night, and it was great. Yeah, they've recovered. There was a big thing going on there last night, and it was great. Yeah, they've recovered.

A few months ago, it was pretty rough with the tents and all the homelessness stuff, but they moved those folks into hotels, and they've purchased some hotels. Have they done that? Yeah, they've done. The mayor's done a good job of trying to clean up the situation. It's all over the country, you go any big city you have this fairly unique situation in terms of like modern times of people camping on the street i mean i don't remember that as a child do you remember when did you remember first seeing tents i mean you know i grew i grew up in small towns in the midwest Yeah. I never lived in big cities.

I think I saw it sometimes when I visited those cities, maybe, when I was a kid, but it wasn't a thing. It was very rare. It was very rare, for sure. Yeah. I think maybe California, to be honest, was the first time I really saw it, you know? I was just back in L.A. a couple of weeks ago, and it's overrun. It's crazy. I don't know how they ever fix it. Are you happy with your move? I love it here. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you live?

I'm in Atlanta. I'm not from there, but we moved there, uh, about 20 years ago now, took a job at the hospital and, uh, Michigan. I lived in DC for a while, various, various places, but yeah, it's, it's good. It's,'s good. It's different than what I ever knew growing up. But I've— Atlanta's nice. Call it home now. I like Atlanta a lot. I've got three girls I, you know, born and raised there.

So it's good. There you go. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So what made you want to come on the podcast? Yeah, well, I like listening to you, Joe. I think you're an authentic guy. No, see, I listened to your podcast for a long time. And you take on some big issues.

And I feel like there's a conversation to be had. You know, it's interesting times, obviously, with this whole pandemic. And I've struggled at times, you know, really understanding not what people think. I think that that that part you can get what people think. It's the how people think. So what I would say is I was curious how you think. I mean, you know, how you approach things. And and frankly, you know, I was going to ask you sort of the same thing, like why you would have me on your podcast. right? I mean, if there's value to be added, if the conversation is useful, I think it is. I mean, I'll take it even a step further. You know, so I'm on CNN and I feel like the audience that shows up for CNN kind of gets it,

gets what I'm saying. They hear it. They've heard it for a long time. Preaching to the choir, I guess. Not even the converted, because they weren't converted. They believe this. But there's obviously a lot of people who think, who aren't watching CNN, who, like if I wanted to reach them in some way, I mean, you reach them. And I thought to myself, if there's one person, really, that I would have a conversation with and say, hey, man, just listen to how I think about these things. I want to hear how you think about it. Listen to how I think about these things. Who would that one person be in the United States? And it was Joe Rogan. It was you. How weird.

Well, does that surprise you? That doesn't surprise you. It does. It still surprises me. I wanted to have you on, first of all, because I really respected that you made this change of opinion publicly. When you were first talking about marijuana, you were talking about it as if it had no medical benefit, and it was really just a recreational drug that was possibly or probably harmful. Is that an assessment that you agree with? Yeah. I think it certainly didn't seem to have any medicinal benefit. Right. But then upon further examination, you publicly changed your position. And in doing so, you actually examined all the scientific evidence that pointed to, for many people with diseases, many people that are

on chemotherapy, many people with, you know, some serious ailments, marijuana can be very beneficial. And you talked about that. And I really admired that because that takes a lot of courage because a lot of people, when they have an idea and they proclaim it publicly, they double down and they just, you know, use confirmation bias and whatever echo chamber news sources they can get to sort of confirm their initial position. And you didn't do that. And I thought that's a real thinking person who is trying to honestly figure out what's going on instead of just working on being right.

Well, look, I appreciate that. And it was very illuminating for me because I think the way that we become a more knowledgeable society, I think sometimes surprises people. I do think, and maybe this will dovetail even to a little bit of what's going on now, people. I do think, and maybe this will dovetail even to a little bit of what's going on now, but the thing is that when you looked at the, so if you were just to look at the bulk of evidence around cannabis at that, and I'm talking, I wrote this Time Magazine article back, you know, this is probably 12, 13 years ago. And I looked at the bulk of evidence and you say, okay, I'm going to just look at the 400 most recent papers. I'm going to read the abstracts. I'm going to dig in deep on some of them. And 94% of them

were basically the hypothesis was, where's the harm here? Show me the harm, right? The hypothesis was not, show me the benefit. That was only true for about 6%. So right away, you're dealing with a sort of very biased sort of set of data. And that's one stream up. Now, if you're just looking at papers, you're like, well, this one, potential lung harm, this one, possible addiction, this one, gateway, you know, you're seeing all those individual studies. But at a broader level, one step upstream, you realize that most of the studies that are getting funded are designed to look for harm, right? So when I saw that, that was the first time I thought, why are the studies that are getting out there, why are they all designed to look for harm?

Then I started looking in other countries and some really good research out of places like Israel in particular. A guy named Raph Meshulam, who's 91 years old now, he was the first guy to ever isolate THC and then synthesize it. He's been doing this work forever. He may get the Nobel Prize before he dies for his work in this. this work forever. He may get the Nobel Prize before he dies for his work in this. They were talking about the use of cannabis for all sorts of ailments, including refractory seizures in kids. And that one really, that really got to me for a couple of reasons. One is that I think when you're trying to do studies on things like pain, it's hard. It's a subjective thing, right? And so you think is how do you really have conclusive proof that this is working the way that you think it is? Someone says their pain is better and that's important. But how do you measure that? A little child who's having 300 seizures a week and is now not having seizures is a much more specific sort of metric.

And it seemed to work really well in kids who did not respond to existing seizure drugs, which was kind of amazing to me. And I think I told you when we've spoken before that that to me, in some ways, that wasn't just a medical issue at that point. It was a moral issue because nothing worked for these kids. And they were thinking about even compounding veterinary medications for them. And these parents are like, you know, in their kitchen sinks, stirring up, you know, cannabis, trying to get the formulation right to turn it into an oil or a tincture they could put underneath the kid's tongue. And it was working. And, you know, I did stories on these kids, and they were emblematic of thousands of more kids. These weren't just anecdotal stories.

And that's when I said, you know, there's something here. But I got to tell you, when I wrote the article saying I changed my mind on this, you know, you hit send at night, and then you wake up in the morning, and I work at a university. I'm a practicing physician. You know, I live in that world. And part of me did wonder, like, what is the response going to be? I felt very comfortable with what I had written what I did not know was how it would be received yeah and that and that's that's always a challenge I think but how was it received I think well I'm still employed so that part of it was good you know I yeah I didn't know if my chairman would say hey look you know I may agree

or not agree with you that's beside the point you should have done this or whatever I you know I had no idea how they were going to respond. I think it was received well, Joe. I think that it added to the knowledge tree of how we advance as a society. It's a sign of the times, I think. I think if you had done that a couple of decades ago, maybe there'd been a lot more pushback. I think people are coming to, uh, much more of an understanding and, and, and also the logical aspect of it. Like when, when people look at all the things that human beings are allowed to consume and including this, uh, that you gave me here, this looks pretty spectacular. I'm pretty proud of my gift that I've given you here.

Some serious bourbon here. But thank you for that. For the man who has everything. This is legal. I mean, we can enjoy a glass. It's normal. It's a normal thing. And we all agree to that.

It's a longstanding tradition for people to drink alcohol socially. Marijuana, for whatever reasons and we could go into that if you want but it's been demonized unfairly and people know that it's not like heroin or crack or things that you've seen people's lives fall apart on it on a regular basis and i think most people are aware of that now. So in the era that you publish that, people have come to an understanding that it's not one of the hard drugs. It's not the most dangerous thing in the world. It's not good for kids. It's not good for some people.

It's not good for some people maybe with possible schizophrenic tendencies. I think there's a real concern there. No, I mean, yeah. You know, you raise a really important point. You know, one thing I tried to stay away from whenever I wrote about this was, I felt like it was a little bit of a trap to get into the moral equivalency of things. Like, I think things should just stand on their own two feet, you know, well, it's better than this, right? What you're saying is true. I feel like alcohol can be a sledgehammer to the brain.

I really do. If you think about the way alcohol affects the brain, very different than the way cannabis affects the brain. And that part of it is true. But the idea that it could be a medicine in particular, I mean, you know, I think that that that is really quite striking. And it's a plant, you know, and there's all these things. And I listen, like I said, I listen to your podcast, I listen to Brett, and I listen to others, and I get the points that they're making about that in terms of can you look to the earth to heal. And oftentimes you can, you know, we've been given a lot of things. But I think that with with cannabis in particular, the evidence, I'm not the first to say this,

obviously, people have been saying this for a long time. Maybe the timing was right. But two decades ago, people were saying this. Three decades ago, people were saying this. This was on the formulary in the United States in the 1940s, post-Riefer madness, which I think was like 1936 or something like that. People were already saying, hey, wait a second. This could be used to treat addiction. This could be used to treat, you know, even Parkinsonian-like symptoms. There was all these things that they were putting out there. And then it went through this cultural

sort of assassination for a while, which was wild to sort of reflect on historically. Have you ever looked at the original cultural assassination of cannabis? Like before Reefer Madness? Well, when it all got... Do you know the origin of it? It was all because of the commodity of hemp versus paper versus, it was all,

the demonization came about right at the invention of the decorticator. A decorticator was a device that was invented in the 1930s that was going to effectively process hemp far easier. It was this crazy looking machine. And before that, they had used slavery to process hemp back in the day. And then with the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became a preferred source of textiles. But then when the decorticator came around, it was the cover of Popular Science magazine that said,

hemp the new billion dollar crop because of the fact they figured out this new machine. And then William Randolph Hearst. Yes. Harry Anslinger. Because William Randolph Hearst didn't just own Hearst publications and Hearst the newspapers.

Pharmaceuticals and nylon. Also, he owned paper mills. Right. And he owned forests filled with trees they were going to chop down to make paper. And it would have cost him millions of dollars to convert all that to hemp. So this evil fuck, what he decided to do, he decided to demonize this particular plant because of the textile, because of the commodity of hemp. And he blamed it all on the psychoactive plant and then named it after a Mexican slang for wild tobacco. Right.

So nobody knew what marijuana was when they started printing this. And they thought there was some new thing that was running rampant through our communities and causing people to do horrendous things. And then they did the Reefer Madness films and that kind of stuff. That's where it all came from. A rich guy who didn't want to lose money from the 1930s. Felt threatened by what this could represent. Haunted us almost a hundred years later. The same, that propaganda, the echoes of that propaganda are what is bothering people even today. It's really frightening to think about it that way. I mean, you see it and then when you see it, it's sort of unraveled like that. I knew the William Randolph Hearst connection. I didn't know it to that level of detail, but there was some, you know, this idea that people had a lot to gain

from this substance being sort of really suppressed, I thought was scary. But fascinating to see because, you know, then you look for it. You say like, is this happening? Well, it shows you how dangerous it is when the press is lying and when they're inaccurate, when they're allowed to print things and publish things that aren't true, that the echoes of that, as I said, could last for 90, 100 years. Well, he was the press, right? He was the press, yeah.

I mean, if the press is owned by somebody who is sort of using this for their own personal gains, I think obviously it's a huge problem. Yeah, especially in the days before the internet, right? Right. Have you had any experiences on marijuana? I've tried it, yeah. Really? I have. When? Recently? Not too recently. Do you have to be careful saying this? No, I don't. I don't care. But I've had a drink before, right? I've had a drink before. Yeah.

Yeah. I could see the appeal of it. I really could. I think I even kept a little log of my experience. Oh, really? I just was curious. Like, what am I going to write? And some of the stuff that I wrote was pretty, I thought, pretty brilliant, actually. But I will say this. It did make me, and I don't know if it's my own personal thing, like I'm bringing too much baggage to it.

I did get the sense of paranoia that people often talk about. And I did not know if it's my own personal thing, like I'm bringing too much baggage to it. I did get the sense of paranoia that people often talk about, and I did not find that very comfortable. Yeah, it's supposed to be uncomfortable, I think. I think you're supposed to learn something from that. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. I thought it was just supposed to be fun,

and anxiety relieving. It can be that too. But I think the uncomfortable feeling that you get from the paranoia, when it goes away, you're left with an understanding of maybe what are these things that you have issues with. And maybe if you could shore up those aspects of your life, you wouldn't have maybe these underlying feelings that you're suppressing and ignoring for the most part until you get high. I think

you'd like to get your life to a place where when you get really high, you don't feel bad. That would be, I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it. If I could get to that point, if I've dealt with some of these things in my own life, then if I were to get high, I would be not as overwhelmed by the paranoia. I fully accept that I have issues that I've got to deal with. That's what you're saying. We all do. I fully accept that. It is weird, though, because I do see the, you know, I read,

you had Michael Pollan on, I saw a while ago. Yes, a couple times, yeah. I read his book, How to Heal Your Mind. I've talked to him about this stuff, and I interviewed even the guys who are doing some of these psilocybin trials now and stuff. It's really interesting to me, you know, in terms of your own personal growth when you're taking some of these substances. I'm not there.

I still have, you know, I had that paranoia, and it really kind of bothered me. Maybe I got some work to do. I don't know. Well, it's also a dose issue, you know, when you don't have any experience with THC and then you smoke marijuana. You know, it's hard to regulate. Like how much should I be taking in? Yeah. You know, it's even weirder if you eat it. Have you had any edible experiences?

I did not try the edibles. And then you get this, I was told you get sort of a biphasic. You get the first sort of hit and then it goes through your liver and then you get a second hit, which can be very hard to manage is, I was told you get sort of a biphasic. You get the first sort of hit and then it goes through your liver and then you get a second hit, which can be very hard to manage is what I was told. Well, the liver part, your body produces 11-hydroxymetabolite. It's a far more potent version of a psychoactive that you don't really get when you smoke it.

It's not really active in the smoking it, but when you eat it, it's it's called a one pass as it goes through your liver it's four to five times more psychoactive than thc is that right yeah that's why people get confused and they think it maybe it was laced like you'll have like a pot cookie or something have you ever watched the video of the cops who yes took the marijuana from the kids and then called 911 they They thought time had stopped somehow. That's 11-hydroxymetabolite. That's what's happening to them.

Yeah, they're tripping balls. It's more like a psychedelic. Well, they were totally paranoid. Yes. Is that what tripping balls means? Well, I mean, they thought time had stopped. It's not as simple as being paranoid. They were probably

Watching the earth through a different dimension It's a it's a different experience when you're when you eat it It's very psychedelic like you might as well be on a psychedelic like you're hallucinating stuff You certainly can when you close your eyes Yeah, when you if you eat it what I used to enjoy eating it and then going into the sensory deprivation tank yeah because you close your eyes and you have these wild visions yeah and you're awake yeah you're wide awake when you're but you're so you're not hallucinating with your eyes open but when you close your eyes you're seeing some wild visuals that i don't know what is

responsible for those you you and uh you and el and Elon doing that, everyone has talked about that. But I'm curious for you, do you feel, I mean, obviously you feel different, but do you feel more creative? Do you feel more unleashed in some ways? Are you less inhibited? I mean, you think about that with alcohol, right? It's a disinhibiting sort of substance.

What about, I mean, when you, I'm sure it's just a different sort of feel in terms of the conversation you have with somebody. Yeah, I definitely think it opens up some aspect of your mind that tends to favor creativity. I think there's, you know, Carl Sagan had a really fascinating quote about marijuana. Carl Sagan was a huge marijuana enthusiast, and his quote was essentially something to the lines of he believes that there are thoughts that are available to you when you are smoking cannabis that aren't available otherwise. When I was only semi-joking about the fact that I wrote some stuff down that I thought was brilliant, what I kind of realized in retrospect is that it's there, but I'm inhibiting it. I'm worried about putting it down on paper. I don't think it's going to be

very good, or I don't think it's going to sound very smart, or whatever it might be, and it never gets out there. And then all of a sudden, I don't care, and I'm putting it out. And then I read it in retrospect, and I'm like, it holds up. Think about what you do, right? Like you're a public person you're on this major television news network talking about science and and medicine and you're a practicing physician that works for a hospital and You have affiliation with the University. There's a lot going on with you where you're scrutinized and you're a public person So there's these constant eyeballs on you and you have to be very aware of saying something that'll be preposterous or some where people are going to

diminish your you know your viewpoint because oh but he said this and right look at that you can you know you could look at you in a an unfavorable light very easily so that lends itself to paranoia. Yeah, I totally see that. I got to tell you, you know, I think that the biggest concern I have sometimes is that people aren't forthright with me, you know. About what? Whatever it might be. It's not that I'm trying to not disclose something, but I think sometimes when I'm having conversations, people behave a certain way around me. They say certain things around me around whatever the issue may be. You know, they feel like they, people behave a certain way around me. They say certain things around me, around whatever the issue may be. They feel like they have to act a certain way around me.

I'm pretty good, I think, at saying I don't know when I don't know. No, I think you are very good at that. I'm humble, I think. I grew up humble. That's my family. I'm a child of immigrants. My mom was a refugee for 12 years. There's not a lot of room for arrogance. There was a study that came out last summer, I think, that said scientists

are increasingly perceived as arrogant. And I was, that bothered me. I was, I found that jarring because, you know, I, some people are arrogant, obviously, but I think as a general rule, if you say, hey, look, this group of people is arrogant, and they're also the group of people like with this pandemic that, you know, we want to listen to, but if we see them as arrogant and, you know, we don't want to be taking instructions or feel like it's too didactic or too top-down, there's not enough of a conversation going on, that's a problem. Not that I'm strategically trying not to be that way, but I think that that's just not who I am. I'm not trying to lecture people on this stuff. I think when you are a person that is discussing something that is affecting millions, if not

billions of people, you have millions, if not billions of opinions that are coming your way. And when you have spent an enormous amount of time studying an issue and you're discussing this issue with people that have spent almost no time studying it, maybe read a few things online or watched a YouTube video, I think it's very easy to get arrogant. It's also very easy to appear arrogant to try to Stifle or to dismiss or diminish the opinions of people that don't agree with you and it is a very common thing when someone is constantly being questioned or Constantly being pressured and you can see it unfold like a good example

I don't mean to pick on her, but the White House secretary, that Jen Psaki lady, she has over time adopted an increasingly more combative tone with people that are questioning her in the press. And she comes off a lot of times as arrogant. And I think that arrogance comes from this constant pressure of being questioned, constant pressure of being scrutinized and criticized. And she's standing up on that podium and she wants to stop it, stop it in its tracks. And so that sort of tone comes out of

that. And unfortunately it does the opposite of what it's intended. It's intended to sort of silence critics, but it just emboldens them. And it makes them more enthusiastic about asking more grading questions and more questions that are going to be more irritable or irritating and get under her skin more and try to get more of a reaction like that from them. I think people do that with scientists. I think they do that with journalists. I think they do that with everybody. Is it a game though? Yes. So the people who are asking Jen Psaki questions, are they doing, like, I guess the question is, are these legitimate questions or are they just doing it to get under her skin? I think they're definitely

legitimate questions, but I think there's also an aspect of playing a little game, trying to say something that you don't really have an answer to, not really trying to have a little game, trying to say something that you don't really have an answer to. Not really trying to have a rational discourse, but it's also, it's a terrible place to have a conversation. Right. Like one person's on a podium, they have a microphone, you're wearing a mask, you're yelling things out, there's a bunch of other people behind you that also want to ask questions.

It's not a good way to communicate, right? So she's under the gun already. And then she's also responding to these people as a representative of the president. But she's not the president. So she's not elected. She's hired. She's a press secretary. And we know from previous experiences, those people don't last. Like, Trump went through a gang of them, right?

It was pretty funny watching these poor people just having to deal with answering the press that were freaking out about the shit that Trump would say. And they stopped doing press conferences for a while. They didn't think they said they I guess they thought there was no value in them anymore. I think they just get tired of being just criticized and scrutinized. And it's a it's a it's a fascinating position because it's a very unnatural position. It's not conducive to good discourse. It's not conducive to good conversations. I think that, you know, like going back to, you know, just you and I having this conversation, I mean, I think that there can be real conversations about these important topics,

right? And they don't have to be... It is insightful to see how people think about this, not just what they think about this. I think that it's just... Everyone says it's so polarized now, and you can't disentangle anything from politics. And I think that's true. And it's not just this pandemic. I mean, even prior to this pandemic, science and politics were not neatly cordoned off from one another. There's always been these sort of things. But I've never seen it quite like this. Nor have I.

I think the question is, when people raise these issues, are they trying to start shit or are they actually having a legitimate question? I had this guy, Joe, the other day who our air conditioning broke at the house. This guy comes over to the house to fix it. Nice guy. Probably in his mid-70s. Has a mask on. He goes and fixes the air conditioning. And when he's walking, I'm walking him out. And I don't know if he knows who I am or anything, but it turns out that he does. And he says, hey, you mind if I ask you a question? I said, sure. He says, do you think I should get the vaccine? This is just a few weeks ago. OK. I said, yeah, I think you should get the vaccine. And he says, well, the reason I ask is because I got this stent, you know, in one of the blood vessels and I'm worried about clotting.

And I said, oh, yeah, well, there was some news reports about clotting. I can see why you'd think that way. And I said, oh, yeah, well, there was some news reports about clotting. I can see why you'd think that way. But here's the thing. You know, your risk of clotting is, as it turns out, 80 times higher from the disease COVID rather than from the vaccine. 80 times? 80 times. Really, you know, the clotting risk was primarily among postmenopausal women, and it was primarily the adenoviral, the Johnson & Johnson type vaccines.

You didn't really see it in the mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna. But the risk is there. But clotting is a real concern with this disease, which is weird, to the point where some people say we shouldn't even call this a respiratory disease as much as a vascular disease. Yeah, I've read that. Which I think is really, I mean, this is, we're learning here. I mean, this is a novel virus. We don't get to see that very often. People focus on the word virus, but the word novel is really important here. I mean, when is the last time you did something for the first time? When's the last time you experienced something for the first time? for the first time. What happens when you have something novel, what you automatically do is you bring your own worldview to it, right? Coronavirus from China. Oh, well, that's going

to be like SARS. I remember SARS back in 2003. This is going to behave like that. So you automatically put this in that box, wrong box to put it in. Oh, it's looking like a pandemic. I'm going to put this in the H1N1 box. That was the last pandemic in 2009. That would have been the wrong box as well. This thing didn't have a box of its own. It behaved totally differently. But the air conditioning guy, you know, he's worried about the clotting. And I tell him this and he says, he thanks me. And he says, well, I really appreciate that. I've been trying to get an answer on this. And part of the reason why is my daughter died last week of COVID. This is my air conditioning guy telling me this.

How old is he? He's mid-70s. So, which, I mean, yeah, it was just hard. You know, somebody tells you his daughter died. And it's a week later and he's working again, which in and of itself was like, I don't think I could do that, go back to work. I mean, he was grieving still. And his daughter died. and they weren't vaccinated. Now they aren't, they're not following the news reports or not. I mean, he's, they're working, they got their lives and it's not something that

they, uh, like this is the hill I'm going to die on. And as far as vaccines, they're not those people, they're just living their lives. But she says to him before she goes on the ventilator, please get vaccinated. And, and then she dies. And, and so he's now telling me that he wants to get vaccinated, but he's worried about this clots. He's been calling his doctor's office. He hasn't gotten a call back yet. And I'm the first person he has seen since this all happened, the first doctor he's seen. And so he asks me and I tell him, and you know I gonna get pissed off at the anti-vaxxers after spending time with that guy no I'm not because there are some who are going back to the same thing some who are just starting want to start shit they're just trying to sow chaos and doubt and for no good

reason chaos is the the metric as you've talked about on your podcast. But this guy, he wants to do it. He understands the consequences of not. He just watched what happened to his daughter. He's worried about his stent in his leg. There's all these things. And we've got to communicate that to people. If we're going to ask the country to do something, if you're going to ask the country to give vaccine, if you're going to ask the country to get boosters, which is the most recent thing, you've got to explain it well. If you're going to the country to get boosters which is the most recent thing you've got to explain it well if you can ask kids to get vaccinated why why are you asking kids because everyone says well aren't they far less likely to to get sick and and all that yes but here's why they should get vaccinated why do you think kids should get vaccinated well i think i

think there's a few reasons first of all they have children yeah like how old you know i mean i think the that will probably see a vaccine authorized for 5 to 11-year-olds. Do we have real studies on the impact of young children and COVID? In terms of what COVID does to their bodies? We know that they're far less likely to get sick. Right. That's for sure. Far less likely to be hospitalized, far less likely to die.

Yep. And far less likely to die from COVID than even from the flu, correct? That could be. You know, I mean, flu is a concern for sure. 60,000 people die of flu every year. But it's more dangerous for children than COVID is, correct? I think when you looked at like H1N1, you know, the— That's a different one, right?

That was a bad flu. But I think, you know, like in any given year, I think, what, some 500 children have died of COVID. In any given year, you know, you may have similar numbers of flu. So death rates, yes. I think the children that died from COVID, most of them had pretty extreme comorbidities, though, correct? Yes. And same for adults. And that is a good conversation to have.

But, I mean, the conversation about children, let's just stay on this one for a bit. What studies are there about children and the dangers of being vaccinated? Because there was a study that came out recently about young boys in particular, that young boys face a higher risk of myocarditis from the vaccine than they do from getting COVID. I don't. So I'm not sure that that's right. I mean, so 16 to 24-year-olds, I think that may be the study you're talking about. It was young people. Young boys in particular, right? And I think that, yeah, young, it was almost all men. Might not have just been myocarditis, but an adverse reaction from the vaccine versus from

COVID itself. I mean, you're right. Myocarditis was the big one. And this came up at the CDC meeting and all that, and it's going to come up again. So I think there's three ways of looking at it. One is that you got to say, what is just the background rate of myocarditis period? Pre-pandemic has nothing to do with the vaccines or COVID, neither exist. What is the background rate? And there is a certain background rate. I think per million, it's like 1500. It's not many, but it's not zero. But for children? Yeah.

But for children immediately upon receiving a vaccine? No, so that's just the background rate. Right. But this is immediately afterwards, which is almost, I mean, not entirely 100% correlated, but most likely. I think you could make a strong case that it's correlated, you know what I mean? Given that it happens. And then what they found was that, so after the first shot, it was about 0.8 per million rate of myocarditis. But after the second

shot, it went closer to six, 5.8 per million myocarditis rates. So still very low, but definitely like if you see a number like that jump, especially between the first and second shot, you've got to pay attention to that. But then you've also got to look at what is, as you point out, the risk of getting myocarditis with the disease COVID as opposed to the vaccine. And it was higher. It was higher. With children. With children. These studies were in children and it was about 16 times higher. Now, keep in mind, 16 times higher sounds like a lot, but we're still talking about five out of a million versus now maybe just under 100 out of a million. So it's still really rare. Now, the one thing I will say about the vaccinated patients who got myocarditis is that they were all treated. Myocarditis can be

a really frightening thing. They can develop chest pain, shortness of breath, things like that. It's inflammation of the heart, correct? That's what it is. And you've got to think of it like this. The reason it can happen in young people, it can happen in anybody, but people who have really robust immune response. You're basically giving the vaccine and you're counting on the immune system to really respond to that.

If it responds a lot in someone with a really healthy immune system, it can cause more widespread inflammation. People feel miserable for a day or two. And in this case, it can cause inflammation around the heart. Do we know what the long-term consequences of myocarditis in young people that comes from the vaccine are? I don't think we don't know. And I think the only way we can know long- term things, to be perfectly honest, of any of these aspects of the vaccine, the only way we can know long term stuff is with the passage of time, you know, for certain. That's terrifying for parents. Well, it is. The idea that your son could get vaccinated and most likely he would have been fine if he got COVID and that your son could catch myocarditis and have permanent heart problems.

Well, I don't know that we can say the person will be fine if they get COVID, Joe. A young boy? Most young boys with no comorbidities. When you say fine, you mean what? That they're not going to die? I mean, like me. I had COVID. I'm fine.

You look like you're strong as an ox. Yes, I give you that. But you get teenagers who will have these long COVID naps. What does that mean? They just, they're tired all the time. They get these sort of long hauler type symptoms. You know, less so in kids. But, you know, when you talk about 33% of people having persistent symptoms at last months,

I just feel like we define, like, I think we're allowed to have a nuanced conversation about this. We measure things in terms of life and death. And I get that. I mean, it's easy. It's public health. That's the way the numbers get presented. And frankly, we probably, that's our fault as well in the media to just say, this is how many people have died. When that study from Scripps came out, and I think, I think Brett or somebody on your show mentioned it even the other day. And they said, hey, look, we should probably start thinking of this thing as a vascular disease, not a respiratory disease. Because, you know, I'm a neurosurgeon. When I first heard that this respiratory pathogen could cause isolated loss of smell, I thought to myself, like, the fact that they can't smell, that's not the end of the world. I get that.

But how is it doing that? Right. Why is it causing strokes in young people? Why is it causing all these other organs to have problems? You know, it's really weird. And this gets back to the novel nature of this virus. We don't know a lot about what this virus does to the body. We probably shouldn't just think of it as another type of pneumonia or cold because it's clearly doing something else.

A cold wouldn't just cause isolated loss of smell. Flu wouldn't even do that. And then so many people developing long-term symptoms. I think about my three kids. What do you think those things are though? When you say long-term symptoms, what do you think is going on there? Is this a result of overall poor health in general, lack of vitamin supplementation and exercise and just a robust immune system and just a person who's eating poorly, sedentary lifestyle. Like what is causing their body to have this sort of reaction where some people get through it quite easily? Young people in particular, like my children.

My children got through it. It was like the worst was like it was like a day. And my other one had a headache for a day. And thankfully, I think most people are that way, right? When I say most, I mean, you know, even among adults, 80%. Right. So should we be making decisions based on the small amount of people that have these long-term symptoms and not instead addressing why did these individuals have these long-term symptoms and not instead addressing why did these individuals have these long-term symptoms? And is this something that's inherent to their own biology,

their own lifestyle choices? Is that what the consequences are coming from? Or is it coming from this very serious disease? Like, shouldn't we look at it in terms of what does this do to healthy people? And if these people are not healthy, what can we do to make them healthy so that they could have a more robust immune system and a more, you know, a more favorable outcome? Instead of just thinking we should vaccinate kids, all kids. Why can't we do both? Because I'm worried. Because I'm worried because I know one of my friends, his good friend that he grew up with, his daughter was 14 14 years old got vaccinated and had to be

admitted to the icu because she was she had some sort of a cardiorespiratory issue from the vaccine that scares the shit out of me that scares the shit out of me i've read a story about a 19 year old girl who had to get a heart transplant because of the vaccine yes we could find it for you wind up dying because she had to get on an immunosuppressant drugs to deal with a heart transplant and then got pneumonia. This is a very rare case, right? Very rare. But if you're going to bring up anecdotal evidence about people that have long-term fatigue and consequences, you also have to bring up these anecdotal tales of people that

have lost friends and loved ones to being vaccinated. Yeah, you're right. I mean- The real things. Those are real things. Those are terrifying. But no one wants to being vaccinated. Yeah, you're right. I mean, the real, those are real things. Those are terrifying. I mean, no one wants to discuss those. Well, I don't want to pretend that they don't exist. I don't, I don't want to pretend they don't exist. Trust me.

I did not know about the 19 year old who needed a heart transplant. That's terrifying. It's a young lady who is apparently she followed all the rules, was wearing a mask all the time, was very disciplined, was going to college, was one of the first people to, you know, at her college get vaccinated. And she had a terrible reaction. Now, obviously, if you vaccinate millions and millions of people, you're going to have a certain percentage of them that have a bad reaction. Just like if you give peanuts to millions and millions of people, some people are going to die. Just like if you give peanuts to millions and millions of people, some people are going to die. Yeah.

No, I mean, the long haulers thing, when I was mentioning the COVID naps, that was just an example. I mean, there is data, you know, when you look at across the board, not just young people, but adults as well. They're saying about a third of people will have symptoms that last longer than a couple months. I have a friend who was a long hauler. And what his issue was, I'm most sure, was that he was training while he was sick and didn't know. And he's a fighter and just kept going and kept training while he was sick and didn't allow himself to rest. And it just got worse and worse. And he would take a little time off and then push it again. And he wound up having symptoms that lasted for months. and he wound up having symptoms that lasted for months. I mean, that part of it, I think, is an important part of the discussion as well, just because we often do just define things in terms of life and death. And the virus is just weird.

There's a lot about this virus I still don't understand. I don't know what this virus does to the body exactly. How could we, right? I mean, it's fairly new. It's novel. We're still learning. But but I do think that when you think about something that's causing such a change in your vascular system, I mean, the way that so many different organs are affected in the body is through the blood, you know, and the idea that the blood is somehow affected by this virus or your vascular system is, I think, is, you know, we're going to learn a lot about that. I mean, the risk reward proposition on the vaccines for young people, if that's the question. Yes. We, you know, I think that the FDA and these other organizations will look at this data and make some recommendations. And there's probably going to be people who say, look, in the end, I just don't think it's worth it for my kids.

people who say, look, in the end, I just don't think it's worth it for my kids. What I would say is that, you know, we, if you're concerned about a specific issue like myocarditis, look at the data and just sort of say, hey, what's the risk reward proposition for vaccine versus risk reward proposition for the disease? Look, don't take my word for it. Look at that data. We are getting better at actually having data because more time has passed now. And then also keep in mind, as you've talked about on the podcast, that you could still be someone who's perpetuating the pandemic because you could potentially still be spreading this virus. I mean, I think we're going to get to the point where we can actually have this pandemic under control. Well, you know, obviously you're aware that you can spread it when you're vaccinated. In fact, this most recent outbreak that we had at the Comedy Store was spread by a vaccinated person and put a bunch of people, you know, out of business, very sick,

and two of them in the hospital who I think they were both vaccinated. But it's obviously vaccinated people can catch it and vaccinated people can spread it. Yes, they can. So if that's the case, the argument of getting vaccinated to stop spreading it doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Well, what, I mean, but what if you were far less likely to get infected if you were vaccinated? Wouldn't you be far less likely to get infected also if you're healthy? And wouldn't we promote people getting healthy? I totally agree with that. And I want to talk to you about that because I wrote a lot about this. But just on this point of the vaccination, again, I don't think that it's either or with this. I think that you're eight times,

according to this new data that's coming out, eight times less likely to get infected if you have been vaccinated. Then just someone who's just plain unvaccinated, never infected. Someone who does not have immunity. Right. Someone does not have immunity, which we'll talk about that as well, I'm sure. But just in general, someone who doesn't have immunity versus someone who does, if you have it, you're eight times less likely to get infected. Now, if you do get infected, you're right. You can still carry the virus in your nose and your mouth and you could still transmit it. A study out of Singapore says your viral load comes down much faster. So there's a period of time where you're probably just as likely to transmit it as an unvaccinated person or a person without immunity.

This is within what time period of the vaccine, right? Because the vaccine immunity supposedly wanes over time, which is the argument for the boosters. That's right. So how much of a time period are we looking at? I mean, there's new data coming in. We have eight times the ability to fight it off. So now they're saying that six to eight months after the vaccine, there's some evidence that against mild infection, the vaccine's effectiveness wanes, which probably means you're more likely

to get infected. So that's probably the case. So it's not indefinite. And I think that's part of the reason they're recommending boosters for some people. But you say, but they, who is they? Because the FDA just declined the recommendation of boosters and the two top people resigned because they didn't think that the science was there to recommend boosters, right? They recommend it for people over 65, people who have vulnerable, you know, because of preexisting conditions, things like people who they think will get quite sick if they were to get a breakthrough infection. So look at it this way. If you look at the number of people hospitalized with COVID in the country, 95% of them are

unvaccinated. So who are the 5%? Is that real? It's different in different places, but 90% plus in most places. We were just discussing that. And I mean, there was a study that was out of England, and then there was another one out of Israel where a large percentage of them, a great number of them. In Israel, that's right. And it's really interesting. But you got to remember something though, Joe, is that once you start getting the vast majority of people vaccinated in a society, then the total number of people who show up in the hospital with COVID are likely to be vaccinated. Right. Because it's a much smaller number vaccinated. It's a much smaller absolute number. But like if you have a lot of people who are showing up in the hospital, over 100,000 at one point, you know, in this country that are in the

hospital with COVID, 90 percent plus were unvaccinated. Now, once we get to a higher vaccination level or a higher immunity level, the ratio will flip just because more people will be vaccinated. Because we have a greater percentage. You have a greater percentage. But I think the question they were asking as part of this booster discussion is who are the 5% that are vaccinated and still get sick enough to end up in the hospital? And what they found was that they tended to be older. They tended to be people with certain pre-existing conditions. They had already made a determination that people who were immune compromised should get a booster shot. So there was all these various things. They did not do, you're right,

across the board recommendation for everyone to get boosters. They don't think the data is there to sort of support that yet. They think the vaccines do work pretty well for people who aren't vulnerable for these reasons. And then the two people resigned. Two people resigned because I think. They felt that they were being pressured to. Why did they resign? I resigned over the boosters, correct? Yeah. Yeah. I think you can safely say that. That seems like a strange situation in the middle of a pandemic for someone who is.

It's not good. Not good. It's not good. So what was your assessment of that? What I think, and this is a problem. I mean, this is a problem. The first we heard of boosters was from who? It was from the White House, right?

Right. We should be hearing about these things first from FDA or CDC. Yeah, scientists. And I think that there was this concern that the White House was sort of getting out ahead of things and making it seem like this was pre said, hey, look, what we really meant was that we think boosters are going to be necessary because we're seeing what's happening in Israel. We're seeing what's happening in the UK. We want to be ready. We want to make sure pharmacies have boosters and we don't go through the whole thing when vaccines first rolled out where people couldn't get them. That's not what they that's not how they approached it. them. That's not how they approached it. And I think the FDA, at least a couple of people who are very senior people within the vaccine office, basically said, we feel pressured, and that's not how we should be conducting science policy. And they left as a result. I can see the problem with that. This should have been something that was just data-driven. And if you're going to make

recommendations to the country on something like this, you've got to justify it. You've got to explain it. It can't feel too didactic. And it felt very top down. Did it concern you when you saw those folks resign? Because in the middle of a pandemic, you would think that the people that have already worked on this and have been working on it for quite some time are extremely valuable for whatever reason that's forcing them to step down like that. It concerned me a lot. And I, you know, look, I spoke up about it even at the time. And I said there was two problems here. One is that clearly the FDA and the CDC were not even part of some of these discussions, at least not some of the career scientists over there. They weren't even part of

the discussion because they were surprised when suddenly the White House Coronavirus Task Force was saying boosters. And so some of these folks who are the actual scientists who are looking at this data, trying to make these determinations, were obviously blindsided by that. That's not good. But the second part of it that I think was even a bigger concern was, what was the data then? How do you justify this? And that's a problem. I think that like, okay, my parents are in their late seventies. They're living in Florida. They've been pretty good throughout this, but I think they would benefit from boosters. They, my dad lives with some chronic disease. They're at risk. And so, yeah, I think they should get boosters because a bad breakthrough for my dad would be a problem.

He could get really sick and might need to be hospitalized or even die. If I were to get a breakthrough, I'm less concerned. I'm a healthy person, generally speaking. I don't think it would be a big problem for me if a breakthrough infection. I don't think it would happen. But if it did, it would be less of a problem. Ultimately, there may be a case made that I need to get a breakthrough infection. I don't think it would happen, but if it did, it would be less of a problem. Ultimately, there may be a case made that I need to get a booster too.

But right now, I feel like the vaccine works pretty well for me. But can I stop you there? That feeling of saying that I feel like if I got infected, I would be okay. Why is that okay to have that feeling if you've been vaccinated and not have that feeling if you're unvaccinated? If you are not concerned about a breakthrough infection

because you feel like your immune system is strong enough to handle it, why is that not okay for someone who is especially a young person? Let's think of a young male who's 18, 19 years old, who is in this risk of myocarditis versus, you know, COVID getting the vaccine shot. Why wouldn't it be okay for that person to make that choice? And what is the argument against just vaccinating vulnerable people like your parents and my parents who have also been vaccinated and taking care of them and protecting them and not having this entire across the board population vaccination strategy. Well, I think when you say unvaccinated, you mean somebody without any immunity or somebody who's had COVID and now may have natural immunity? Someone without any immunity at all. Well, I mean, the problem is that they could become infected, even if they don't get sick, and be a spreader.

I realize that I as a vaccine person- And that could also happen to you. It could happen to me, but it's less likely because I am less likely to, I'm eight times less likely to get infected in the first place. If I do get infected, my viral load, which could go up and have, you know, I could carry virus in my nose and my mouth, it will come down much faster too. So I can spread, but it's a narrower window and I'm less likely to get infected. It's a narrow window within a certain period of time after your vaccination. Correct. Waning over time. Yeah. It looks to be waning over time. I mean,

we only had, you know, we really started only vaccinating, you know, this, you know, December, January. So it's only eight to 10 months worth of data. Johnson and Johnson really didn't start doing it till March. So we're seeing this. I mean, if you look at vaccines overall, leave aside the flu shot for a second, just say vaccines. Most vaccines do require a prime, maybe sometimes a couple shots that sort of prime your immune system. And then eventually you get a boost and it sort of boosts it so that you get long-lasting protection. You see that with, you know, a lot of childhood vaccines and other vaccines as well, even some that we take as adults. That's not unusual. I think what the question really is, is when is, does everyone need a boost, like me, for example,

and younger people, and is there a right interval for that? Is it six months? Is it eight months? Is it a year? Like, what's the best time to do that? Do we have real data on boosters and what the long-term effects of those are? I mean, with the effects from the studies, we're essentially just on the two shots, right? How much data do we have on three shots or four or five or however many it's going to take? Some of this data is from other countries that have been boosting for a while, but no. Again, we don't have any long-term data on that. We know what the vaccine does inside the body, but I think it's a fair question, Joe. If you were to ask me, we're recommending something,

and what does it mean 10 years from now or five years from now, whatever. I don't think anyone can say without a doubt there's no problem here. But I think overall, you'd say we have a long history of vaccines in this country. Admittedly, some of these are new types of vaccines. And if people have side effects, they typically occur within the first 42 days, significant side effects. And that's why they waited two months for these safety studies before they really started, you know, saying the safety data is enough. Right. You remember in the fall of last year, they wanted to authorize these vaccines really fast.

Just get them out there, put them out there. And they pushed back and said, no, we're going to wait for two months at at least of safety data, because the vast majority of side effects occur within the first 42 days. Again, I don't know about this 19 year old woman, and I'm sure that there are some stories like that. But I think that that data has held up. I mean, there's been some 6 billion shots now given around the world of this vaccine. So in addition to the clinical trials, which were tens of thousands of people, you have a lot of real world data now over addition to the clinical trials, which were tens of thousands of people, you have a lot of real-world data now over the last, you know, eight to ten months.

You could make the case that these are some of the most studied therapeutics anywhere on the planet, which is not surprising, because everyone on the planet will ultimately need these or take these, you know, so you get billions of pieces of data. You don't think everyone on the planet is going to have to get a COVID shot what about people that have had the infection okay well

we can talk about that we can but i would i still want to talk about people that are vulnerable versus people that are not don't you think that even with a breakthrough infection untreated you're probably more vulnerable than the average child who is not vaccinated who gets covid like people have died who are double vaccinated. In fact, there was a guy who just won an Emmy. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. Terrible.

It was just at this celebration a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if he got COVID there or whatever, but this maskless celebration has a breakthrough, dies from COVID. The odds of that happening to a healthy child are very, very low. Very low. But that guy is probably your age. How old are you?

I'm 51. Yeah, he's about your age. I think he was 53. So at least theoretically, you would be more vulnerable than a young child would be. You vaccinated would be more vulnerable of a breakthrough infection than a young child would be, statistically speaking, right? But you're not worried about catching it. You're not worried about catching it because you've been vaccinated and you think it imparts a certain amount of protection. What I'm saying to you is I think that not worry is the same feeling that a lot of people have about their children. They're not worried about their healthy children catching it for the same reason you're not worried about catching it being vaccinated,

that if treated correctly, they think that the child probably has a better chance even than you do because you're 51 years old. I think- Does that- I mean, they're both- That seems reasonable, right? Well, I think it's, I don't, I know the story about this 53-year-old guy. But you see what I'm saying? Like with your attitude that you're not worried about catching it because you've been vaccinated and you're a healthy guy.

That is the exact same feeling that people have about vaccinating their children. If they have healthy children and they know that statistically speaking, there's so few children that have died from COVID. Well, yeah, there are. It's like I think so few children that have died from COVID. Well, yeah, there are. It's like I think 500 or so children have died from it. Out of millions and millions and millions of kids. That probably have been exposed. But, you know, again, part of it is not defining this in terms of life and death. I think having antibodies as a general rule is going to make you safer than if you don't.

It is. And I'm not just talking about life and death. But you know that most children, when they catch COVID, have a very quick recovery. Yeah, I think most do. But there are these long haulers. There's also adults like you that are vaccinated that die. Yes. But I think people in their 50s, if you look at the data of people who get hospitalized with these breakthrough infections, they do fall into very specific categories. They just do. I mean, now there's data on that.

It's not impossible. But this guy did not look healthy. I get it. And I'm sure there's. And they said he had no underlying health conditions. I don't disagree with that. I think it can happen, obviously. But do you understand my point? Well, are you suggesting I get boosted? I'm disagree with that. I think it can happen, obviously. But do you understand my point?

Well, are you suggesting I get boosted? I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is your attitude about not being concerned because you have antibodies and you think you would get through it even if you had a breakthrough infection, that is the exact same attitude that a lot of young people have where they don't want to get a shot because they're worried about the consequences, even though they're incredibly small. Consequences of the vaccine. Of the vaccine. Incredibly small. But the VAERS report, they do have deaths. They do have injuries. They do have consequences.

I know that you're vaccinating hundreds of millions of people in this country alone. You're going to have a certain percentage of them that have an adverse reaction. But the same attitude that you have where you're not worried about catching it, they have that same attitude. Why is it okay for you and not okay for someone to have that attitude about their child? I think you do have to draw a distinction between someone who has immunity versus someone who doesn't. A child is going to get through it as if they had immunity, don't you think? Most likely?

First of all, they can get sick, even if they don't die. And you can as well, right? But you're not worried. I have immunity. I do. I got a vaccine. Right. But breakthrough infections are real, right?

They can happen. They can happen. Despite this particular story, the person who died of it, in my age group, they're not very common. At some point, if there's more evidence that the vaccine's effectiveness is waning even more, you're seeing people my age getting it, that's like a more common thing, then I would consider that. Some would suggest I get a booster shot because I work in a hospital, right? I'm a booster shot because I work in a hospital, right? I'm a healthcare worker and I don't take care of COVID patients specifically, but there can be COVID in the hospital, obviously. My patients are neurosurgery patients, so it's a little different. But yeah, I think it's a fair point. But I certainly wouldn't look at that and say this is a reason for children not to get vaccinated. But if there is a statistic, if there's a study that shows that young boys in particular are more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine than they are to catching COVID, why? Is there a study that shows that? Yes. Let's find it. Find

that study where it says young boys more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine than to COVID. We were just talking about it. I mean, the myocarditis data, I know, which is what a lot of people have focused on, you know, it was about 16 times higher with the disease than with the vaccine. I don't know what other- We'll try to find this. But my point is, the same attitude that you have about not being worried if you catch it because you're vaccinated. A lot of people have that, not being worried if they catch it because they're young and healthy. Here it is.

Boyd's more at risk from Pfizer jab side effect than COVID study suggested. U.S. researchers say teenagers more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in the hospital with COVID. then end up in the hospital with COVID. So if you have a child and you read this, don't you think that you would be hesitant to vaccinate a child that would most likely cruise through COVID with no issues, specifically if they're healthy boys? Well, I think, yes. So I think you got to, you do have to compare apples to apples a little bit here. So I think what this is saying, Joe, is, so if you just said, here's the question, what is your likelihood likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in the hospital with COVID over a four-month period. Right. That would make me very concerned.

A lot of the kids who got myocarditis after the vaccine did not end up in the hospital. That's part of the thing. They could be treated as an outpatient. They got steroids. They did not need to be hospitalized. But we don't have any idea how that's going to affect them long term, correct? That is true. I think when you raise that point, that's always going to be a fair point because until

we have four to six times. This is the absolute risk versus the relative risk. It's a real thing. But I think if the question you're saying is, look, I'm worried about myocarditis, period. How likely is my child to get myocarditis from the vaccine versus from COVID? Okay. Not just, hey, how likely are they to end up in the hospital, period, from COVID, but just how likely are they to end up with myocarditis?

I think, you know, like if you were to ask the question, how likely are you to end up in the hospital after a vaccine versus how likely you end up in the hospital after COVID, that would be a fair comparison. What do you think is wrong with this comparison that they're making? Let's put it up again so you can specifically read it and tell me what's wrong, because I feel like you're kind of cherry picking here. No, no. Because it says the data suggests that boys 12 to 15 with no underlying medical conditions

are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in the hospital with COVID. then ending up in the hospital with COVID. Ending up in the hospital with COVID for anything, right? I mean, there are two different groups of patients here. One is specifically myocarditis. Right. But ending up in the hospital with COVID over anything would give you more data. Yeah. It would give you more instances. Right. So, I mean-

That would make more people hospitalized with COVID. Your example falls the wrong way. So what I'm saying is that most of the people who got myocarditis did not need to go to the hospital, is what I'm saying. They were treatable outside the hospital. Right. So you're saying that it's okay that they got myocarditis because they didn't wind up in the hospital? No, not at all. I'm not saying that. But it doesn't even say that. It doesn't say that.

But it doesn't say that they're not hospitalized with myocarditis. It doesn't say that. Right. That's the point. It says 86% of the boys affected required some hospital care. Yeah, I think so. That's a lot. Yeah, I don't know that they ended up needing to be hospitalized, though.

But it says it right there. 86% of the boys affected by vaccine-related myocarditis required some hospital care. Yeah. No, I see what you're saying. But when you look at the data overall- This doesn't concern you? This doesn't make you pause? It does concern me, totally. But the question still is from a risk-reward proposition.

What is the likelihood- The risk-reward proposition there is very clear. No, no. But I'm just saying that if I say, hey, look, I'm worried about myocarditis. Okay. Let's say that's the thing. Let's just take that as an example. Okay. What is the likelihood I'm going to have myocarditis from the vaccine versus myocarditis from the disease. It seems like the likelihood, according to that study,

for young boys age 12 to 15 is far more likely to get myocarditis from the vaccine than you are from COVID. There's not a lot of kids who go to the hospital for COVID. You're right about that. And myocarditis is a risk. But myocarditis is more common in those who get the disease. Well, according to that study, it's not. According to that study, it's...

But you're saying it, but you're ignoring the science that they're presenting. They're showing that you're more likely to get myocarditis at a large number, four to six times more likely. They're not saying myocarditis. They're saying it's- Then be hospitalized with COVID. Hospitalized with COVID, right.

Okay, put that up again. It's saying you're four to six times more likely to get myocarditis than to be hospitalized from COVID. I will take a closer look at this, but you have an impulse to defend the vaccination in light of this data. Can I pull out something here? Because I have been thinking about this a lot. I mean, I got teenage kids and we looked a lot at the myocarditis data overall. But that is saying that you're four to six more likely to get myocarditis than you are to be hospitalized for COVID for any reason at all. Yeah. So here's the myocarditis data specifically, which showed that it was a 16 times higher risk of myocarditis among patients with COVID-19 as compared to the vaccine.

Right, right, right. But this is among all patients. You could have 90-year-old people. They count as patients, right? Yeah. You're talking about, we're specifically talking about 12 to 15-year-old boys. What I was saying to you is your confidence and not worrying about catching COVID because you're a healthy guy and because you've been vaccinated.

So you catching an infection of a highly novel virus, which is a real thing, you're a healthy guy and because you've been vaccinated. So you catching an infection of a highly novel virus, which is a real thing. You're less worried about that because of your circumstances. What I'm saying is. Because I have immunity. These young boys will breeze through this thing for the most part. You know that, right? I think most of them will be totally fine. Most young people breeze through it, including my own children, breeze through it.

Yes. But can they spread it, though? Can they spread it? You can spread it. You can spread it if you get sick, but you're not worried about it because you'll be okay. I'm far less. Look, it's not a perfect vaccine. I'm not suggesting that.

But if I tell you I'm eight times less likely to get infected. Right. But you could get infected, and thousands and thousands of people have and are still spreading it. Right. My point was that your attitude, which is a totally reasonable attitude of not being concerned about a breakthrough infection is exactly the same way a lot of people feel about their children and COVID. I'm not, you know, I think you see my point. I do. I, I, I, and I, and I appreciate the, the, the conversation around this. But I think that, you know, we have to apply the same degree of certainty and confidence and across the board. Right. When I tell you that I am not concerned about getting a significant breakthrough infection, I mean that because I know that the people who do get these significant breakthrough infections are people who are more vulnerable and elderly, right?

We know who the 5% are. That's not true. That guy is 53 years old. I understand. He's your age and he's dead. More likely. I'm saying more likely. That's what I'm talking about with the certainty, Joe.

It's like we can't – I'm not saying 100%. But it's less – like if you look at the vast majority of people who have breakthrough infections that end up in the hospital, you can start to see who is most vulnerable here. I understand, but don't you see that the same logic can be applied to young people? The same logic can be applied to young, healthy people. Why would you be worried about them? They're going to be fine. Just like you're not worried. I'm not that worried about young people in terms of their health. I'm not. I don't think that's a big concern. In that circumstance,

why would you want to vaccinate young people if the risk of being vaccine injured is four to six times more likely than being hospitalized for COVID under for any circumstance, according to that? Okay. Well, if you just leave aside that study for a second, and I get you a bit. But why would we? Okay. But let me say, what is another reason for young people to get vaccinated besides that? Is there any other benefit to it? I mean, we're in the middle of this pandemic. If we know that people who don't have immunity, even if they don't get sick, can still catch this and spread it, and that the majority of spread was coming through people who did not even have much in the way of symptoms. Is that true?

Yeah. I think they said asymptomatic spread accounted for more than 50% of the spread, at least in the early days. I have a theory about that. I think most people have no idea how their body's supposed to feel because they've been feeding it shit and not taking care of it and so when they say I didn't know I was sick it's because they're not aware of their body I I think I was pretty aware that something was wrong with me well I mean and you're you're a healthy guy right I mean you're you're a healthy guy you you you take care of yourself and and and you got sick still, right? I mean, like you say, you're more aware of your own body. But I think whatever it was, either because people weren't getting tested or they didn't feel they had symptoms, unlike with a lot of respiratory pathogens, you're usually transmitting it when you're sick.

You're coughing and you're sneezing and that sort of stuff. A lot of the spread happened through asymptomatic people. That's incredibly novel, correct? That is nothing that we've ever observed. And that and that is part of the argument, I think, that people made around masks ultimately, which I'm happy to talk about that. I think it was a muddled message around that. But I think it's please tell me what your what's your position on masks? Well, let me just finish. Let me just finish one thing, I think that – because I really want to address this kids thing. And I think about it a lot. Can kids – is there benefit to transmitting – to vaccinating kids in terms of decreasing the overall transmission of the virus?

That's the thing. If you – it's not perfect by any means. I'm not suggesting that. We know you can still potentially be a carrier and spreader even if you've been vaccinated, but it's a lot less likely. So if we're serious about bringing this pandemic to an end and giving as many people immunity as possible, is there benefit to vaccinating young people? I think there is. That's another reason. I think there may be some protection overall, although I think they're far less likely to get sick.

I am going to look at that study, but I'm telling you that we're comparing very small numbers regardless, right? When you're talking about one to two in a million versus four in a million, these are small numbers. So the absolute risk of these things are all small. But the idea that they could be helpful in terms of, like, I feel like we could bring this pandemic under control,

not extinguish it completely. Probably this virus is here to stay, but we could bring it under control. No, keep going. And I think if the more people that have immunity, the better. At some point, you know, you have to sort of, I think, look at the risk reward propositions. And I promise you, I will dig into that study. I'm

not sure. I think that was the Guardian newspaper. I've looked up a bunch of studies on myocarditis specifically, especially when I was thinking about getting my kids vaccinated. And that's what I found. You're right. That was across the board. But this was really up to 24 years old because you weren't seeing a lot of myocarditis in people who are older. I think this is primarily that I think it has to do. It was primarily boys, too. I think it has to do with how much your body responds to the vaccine, how much how much inflammation you sort of have in response to the vaccine. When you feel miserable after the vaccine for a day or two, it's because your body's sort of revved up. Do you know anyone who's had a bad reaction to the vaccine?

I've had people, I mean, they don't feel well. They feel like they need to, you know, they have a little fever. Oh, I know a lot of people who've had that. Sick. Do you know anybody who's had a stroke? No. I know two. That had strokes after the vaccine? Two people you know anybody who's had a stroke no i know i know two that had strokes after the vaccine people yeah oh one guy had a stroke what happened two heart

attacks all right no excuse me heart attack and two strokes were they young guy were they pretty sure it was related to the vaccine yeah almost immediately afterwards like within the next uh four or five days after really had a heart attack and two strokes. Do you think that what's happening is that maybe perhaps the vaccine accidentally gets injected into a vein? Is that a possible reaction for some of these very rare instances where people have these horrific side effects? It could be. There was a study that just came out basically saying, you know, frankly, reminding people that when you inject- You should aspirate. You got to aspirate a little bit, make sure you don't get blood back and then be able to inject directly into the muscle. Is there a specific site that's more conducive to a straight

muscle than to hitting a vein or a blood vessel? Or is it just dumb luck? You know, when you're injecting into them, you obviously got big blood vessels around, so obviously you have to avoid those. Within the muscle itself, you may have smaller blood vessels, small veins, small capillaries. And so is it just luck whether or not the vaccine gets into those? Into the blood vessel? Yes. I mean, that would be bad if it got into those. So, you know, you're supposed to aspirate a little bit to not have that happen. It's unusual for it to happen. But I think that there might be something to that. There's a study that just came out, I think, over the last couple of days showing that there may be some concerns about more adverse effects in people who had it injected directly into their bloodstream.

Because that study on the spike protein that they did at the Salk Institute, I'm sure you're aware of that, that showed the spike protein is responsible for the deterioration of blood vessels. Yeah. I mean, the Salk, and they were the same ones who then classify this potentially as a vascular disease as opposed to a respiratory disease for that very reason, they think that there's these receptors that are really predominantly in your blood vessels that the spike protein is binding to. So that's a concern. And obviously your blood is going everywhere in the body, which is why so many organ systems are affected. So do you think that the injection, if it does inadvertently hit a blood vessel or some sort of a vein and then it goes straight into that, that it's possible that could be what's going on with people. Yeah. I mean, what you're injecting into the body is, is a, a, um, uh, a signal, a messenger RNA signal that is then

telling your muscle cells to make some of the spike protein. Right. And then your body reacts to the spike protein it just made by creating antibodies, these proteins. So you're essentially, the body is the vaccine making factory here. If you inject it into the bloodstream, does the muscle even get to make the spike protein? I'm not sure. Because you need these muscle cells to actually get the signal. So I'm not sure why that would cause a problem specifically, but it does seem to.

It could be a concern if you're injecting this directly into the bloodstream, which is why they have to do it carefully. I haven't had any friends that have been vaccinated that had the nurse aspirate first. Really? Have you? Did the nurse aspirate you first? I didn't look.

I don't, I don't, I don't look, I don't like needles. I turn my eyes. Oh, I, that's what you're supposed to do. What are your thoughts about therapeutics? Like specifically the new, uh, Merck has a new therapeutic that's coming out and Pfizer has a new therapeutic that's coming out and monoclonal antibodies, which are been observed to be very effective. I think the therapeutics are potentially really good. I mean, the Merck one, I have not seen any data from besides the company yet. So I think we need to, you know, it's-

Do you not trust the company? I don't have I I gotta be suspicious I always have to be yeah so you know I mean these are companies or obviously want to sell a product it's expensive isn't that scary though 700 bucks for when when health care companies when companies like pharmaceutical companies have a direct vested interest in ignoring certain aspects of studies because it might somehow or another inhibit their profit or scare people off of the drug. Doesn't that scare you?

Yeah. I got to be skeptical of those. And they're big companies and they're for profit. And they've also been busted before. Like Pfizer, the largest ever healthcare case, $2.3 billion for fraudulent claims, fraudulent advertising. Which one? Was that the cancer, the talc one? No. That was Johnson & Johnson. Pfizer was some sort of anti-inflammatory, right?

What was it, Jamie? But whenever that happens. Jamie knows everything. Yeah. Well, Google knows everything. Jamie knows how. Yeah. Well, Google knows everything. Jamie knows how to Google. $2.3 billion for fraudulent marketing. Plead guilty to felony violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Why is cosmetic in there? Oh, Bextra. Bextra, right. Bextra, that's right. And Bextra is an anti-inflammatory drug. So this is back in 2000. Yeah, look, I mean, even when the first vaccine data came out before it was reviewed, I think we had to be skeptical. And I was, you know, I mean, when they first said 95% protective, I mean, that's huge. You don't typically hear about vaccines being that protective. And by the way, it was supposed to take four years and they did it so fast, you know. So, yeah, you have to do a lot of homework. I had to dig deep on some of that stuff. And I think it's the same thing with the Merck. If this medication holds up and the data is, you know, they review it and it's true, I think it's pretty significant.

You know, it reminds you a little bit of like Tamiflu that we talked about the flu. But this would even be potentially more effective than Tamiflu is for the flu. Would you change your perspective on vaccines if that turned out to be very effective? I still don't want this disease, Joe. I just don't want it. I don't know what the heck this virus does to the body. I just don't. And I'm not saying it to scare you because you're, like I said, most people are gonna be fine. They really are. It's 99 point what? Well, 7%. Look, let me, let me, let me put it to you like this. You know, Point what? Well.

7%. Look, let me put it to you like this. You know, risk is an interesting thing to sort of evaluate, right? I remember having this conversation with people early on, maybe like the summer or spring of last year. And at that point, we said, well, across the board, maybe 0.5% lethal, okay? So 99.5%, not 0.5% lethal. Right. Okay. So 99.5%, not 0.5% lethal. And I would have these conversations with people and people would say, some people would say, so one in 200 people are going to die. Well, shit, we better be really careful. We got to protect ourselves. One in 200 is a lot. And other people would say,

so I'm 99.5% good, right? What's the big deal? I mean, it's the same objective data and people's subjective interpretations. And by the way, it can be very much influenced by what their lives are like. If they can stay at home and do Zoom calls and things like that, are they going to take a 0.5% risk? Some people may, some people may not. If you're a frontline worker, if you have to work in a hospital like I do, then all of a sudden maybe you're thinking 99.5% is not so bad. I'd love to talk to you about that too, because one of the things that saddens me deeply is these hospital workers who risked their lives during the pandemic to treat people with COVID. Most of them were exposed. A lot of them got COVID and they have

the antibodies and now they're being forced to either get vaccinated or they get fired. Right. That seems ridiculous given the information that we know about the natural immunity that is imparted through- Impunity with immunity. natural immunity that is imparted through... Impunity with immunity. Yeah, that is imparted through previous infection. We know that to be very effective. In fact, a study out of Israel showed it to be six to 13 times more effective

than the immunity that's imparted by the vaccine. Yeah. But yet they're ignoring that and forcing these people to comply with this mandate. Why do you think they would do that? And does that piss you off? This one surprises me. It does. Because first of all, just historically, we do know that people who have natural immunity, it can be very effective immunity. I'm talking even pre-pandemic, you know, even SARS going back to 2003. People 18 years later. Yes, that's right.

There's evidence of immunity. So, I mean, this is not like, whoa, we should be blown away by this. This was kind of a known entity. It's normal. I think what has surprised me a bit about it is that we still don't do enough testing to really know for sure if people actually have the immunity. People say they've had COVID, so they should have antibodies. Some of these antibody tests are pretty good. Some are not. So it's weird that two years into this that we still don't have good vision on just how much immunity we have. Well, you took a nice little antibody test today. I did.

We got to see your immunity. My immunity is good. It's okay. Mine's a little fatter. What's it, fatter? I don't know. You can tell how strong your immunity is from these tests. You can see the lines.

Yeah, you can see the lines. We judge lines around here. We judge lines. Jamie You can see the lines. Yeah, you can see the lines. We judge lines around here. Judge lines. Jamie's got some thick lines. So I should feel safe in this room. Oh, yeah. We're lined up. But no, I think that's been a weak spot for us in terms of actually-

It's sad because you're in the middle of a pandemic and you're firing healthcare workers with massive amounts of experience treating the very disease that is affecting everybody. If somebody can demonstrate that they have immunity, I think that should be worth something. I really do. I really do. But we still don't have enough testing. Yeah, but these tests are available. Those are good tests, but I talked to Mercy, your nurse, and those tests she got from the

hospital, you go and get the over-the-counter tests, and she'll be the first to tell you. She doesn't use those because they sometimes don't work or they'll give different results. The over-the-counter tests are not blood tests, correct? You can buy over-the-counter antibody tests. A blood one? Really? Yeah, a finger prick just like this. Why don't they sell those?

It's not hard to do. This is just in the news now that they're spending another couple billion dollars putting out more tests and making them more available. And we have vaccine sites everywhere. We should have antibody sites. It's far more complicated given the amount of extreme cold that you have to store the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in. Why can't they have antibody tests everywhere the same way they have? It's a far easier procedure. I think they should. For sure. And I think they should have antigen everywhere, the same way they have, it's a far easier procedure. I think they should.

For sure. And I think they should have antigen tests too. Yes. Because the thing about antigen tests is that they can tell you, they can give you the answer to the question you're really trying to ask, which is, am I contagious? Right. You know, so if you could have an antigen test every day even, I know that sounds ridiculous. I have one every day. You do? It's not ridiculous at all. You do it here. Weigen test every day even. I know that sounds ridiculous. I have one every day.

You do? It's not ridiculous at all. You do it here. We do it every single day. You could do it at your house when you're brushing your teeth, and you know that day if you're contagious or not, and we don't do that. And I've asked, Joe, and there's not a good answer, but one of the answers that I keep getting, if I can explain this well,

is that if you think about the purpose of an antigen test, like me taking an antigen test benefits who exactly? It benefits the people around me, because I'm healthy, so I'm not sick. So now I just want to know, am I spreading this to other people? Contagious. Going back to what I said earlier, I think there's a lot of people that are just not aware of how their body's functioning because they're eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew and sitting around doing nothing. So their body is always in a state of discomfort. I have a lot to say about that. Please do.

Okay. Yeah, go ahead. The antigen test, the way that they regulate that is as a public health tool because they're saying this is good for the public health. Yes. Whereas the PCR, you know, the specific gold standard test, they say that's an individual test because that tells you if you have presence of virus. I'm not saying I agree with this. I would like to talk to you about that as well. I'm just telling you that that's sort of the answer you'll get as to why these antigen tests are not as widely available. Yeah.

People haven't known how to use them. available. People haven't known how to use them. A guy named Michael Minna, who has done a lot of writing on this, he was saying early days that we should just have antigen tests available for everybody every day. They could do this at least till we get through the worst of the pandemic until we get it under control. That's how you know if you're contagious, you don't go be around people that day. It seems like that would be a good solution. The only thing I would say when it comes to Merck, the therapeutics and when it comes to testing. And I know I know how you feel about this. I'm getting an idea of how you think about this.

Is it the testing is obviously testing you to see if you have the virus. The therapeutic is to treat you because you have the virus. Yes. I still think it'd be better not you have the virus. Yes. The therapeutic is to treat you because you have the virus. Yes. I still think it'd be better not to get the virus. I think it'd be better to get the virus and recover and have amazing immunity to it. But what, like- Wouldn't it be? Well, you could get sick though.

You know what I think you should do? I think you should get vaccinated and then get sick. What? 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, which is far more complex and comprehensive than you're getting from the vaccine that

targets one specific protein, right? You can make that argument, I think. Yeah. So that's the move. All right. Get vaccinated, let it wane and hang around with a bunch of dirty people. Okay. Well, I- And then get a lot of therapeutics, and hang around with a bunch of dirty people. Okay, well, I- And then get a lot of therapeutics on hand so you can take care of it quickly.

I will see your recommendation. You're going to do it? And give you a recommendation. You should have come out with us last night. You probably would have caught it. I almost did. Now I know what your secret plan was. No.

No. But so for you, Joe rogan yes i would say you've had it yes so now get one shot of the vaccine no why not because i have better immunity than i would if i was vaccinated we so right yes don't i i think your immunity is really good so why if i've already gotten through covid and i was really only sick for a day and then five days later i was negative and i do have the natural antibodies now. Why would I take a chance in getting vaccinated on top of that? By the way, I'm glad you're better.

Thank you. I'm glad it only lasted a day. You're probably the only one at CNN that's glad. No, no, no, no, no. The rest of them are all lying about me taking horse medication. We should talk about that. What bothered you? It should bother you, too.

They're lying at your network about people taking human drugs versus drugs for veterinary Calling it a horse dewormer is not a flattering thing. I get that. It's a lie. It's a lie on a news network. And it's a lie that's a willing, that's a lie that they're conscious of. It's not a mistake. Yeah.

They're unfavorably framing it as veterinary medicine. Well, the FDA put this thing out You saw that did you see that thing that the FDA put out? What did the FDA put out? It was a tweet and it was snarky. I admit it They said you are not a horse you are not a cow stop taking this stuff or something like why would you say that? when you're talking about a drug that's been given out to Billions and billions of people a drug that was responsible for one of the inventors of it making the winning the Nobel Prize in 2015. 15, yeah.

Yeah, a drug that has been shown to stop viral replication in vitro. You know that, right? Why would they lie and say that's horse dewormer? I can afford people medicine, motherfucker. This is ridiculous. It's just a lie. I don't think anyone is thinking- But don't you think that a lie like that is dangerous on a news network when you know

that they know they're lying? You know that they know that I took medicine. Like, here it is. This is ivermectin. You got it with you. This is it right here. Somebody gave it to me. All right.

Hang on. The thing is, we're going so fast. I feel like I'm missing... Do you think that that's a problem? That your news network lies well i don't i don't dude what did they say they lied and said i was taking horse dewormer first of all it was prescribed to me by a doctor yeah yeah along they shouldn't have said it was a bunch of other medications if you got a human pill because there were people that were

taking it the veterinary medication. And you're not, obviously. You got it from a doctor. So it shouldn't be called that. Ivermectin can be a very effective medication for parasitic disease. And as you say, it's probably, I think, what, a quarter billion people have taken it around the world? I get that. More. Way more. Way more. Billions of people have taken it. Can I just come back to the one? I want to talk about it. No, no, no, no. Two things on the ledger. You have to, before we get to that, does it bother you that the news network you work

for out and out lied, just outright lied about me taking horse dewormer? They shouldn't have said that. Why did they do that? I don't know. You didn't ask? You didn't think that was your, you're the medical guy over there. I didn't ask. I should have asked before coming on your podcast.

But they did it with such glee. No, Joe. Yes, they did. I watched. I watched. I watched. You watched. No, I don't think there's a glee.

Yes, they did. I don't. No one takes. Joe Rogan says he has COVID. Taking livestock drug despite warnings. Yeah. Jamie had to pull this up. You want to play it?

Does she have glee? This is your news network. I'm going to watch. Let's see. I'm going to watch. Let's see. I'm going to watch. Rogan telling his 13 million Instagram followers that he was treated with several drugs, and he included ivermectin on the list, a drug used for livestock. The FDA and the CDC warn against using to treat COVID.

Turns out I got COVID. Look, they put a yellow filter on me, too. So we immediately threw the kitchen sink out of all kinds of meds. Monoclonal antibodies. You see the original video versus that? I look like shit there. Do you know that? I think you look good.

Pause. Pause. It's enough. Prednisone. That's enough, Jamie. I don't think Aaron had glee. Oh, well, it was more Brian Stelter was the gleeful one. But the point is, that's a lie.

It can be used for humans. I get it. Not just could be used for humans. It's often used for humans along with all the other drugs I took. All human drugs. Yes. They know it's a human drug. It's right.

And they lied. The thing- It's defamatory. It is, yeah. They shouldn't have done that. It's defamatory, right? Well, I don't know if it's defamatory. I bet it is.

Well, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer. It's a lie. Well, see, here's the thing. You can have nuanced discussions about this. No, you can't. You can't have nuanced discussions about lying about someone taking horsey warmer. There was no glee, by the way, from her.

Well, I didn't watch her. I don't think anyone takes people's illness. Oh, yes, they do. They don't want you to get sick, Joe. Yes, they do. They were upset that I got healthy. That's one thing they didn't report on, the fact that I was negative five days later

and working out six days later. Six days after infection, I was back in the gym. I'm glad. Felt great. I'm glad you do. Me too. Thank you. I'm glad you're glad. You're a nice guy. Most of the people I know, I think back in the gym. I'm glad. Felt great. I'm glad you do. I really am. Thank you. Most of the people-

I'm glad you're glad. You're a nice guy. Most of the people I know I think would be glad that you, I don't think that there was any- There's a lot of people out there that weren't glad. But my point is, 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? What are they telling us about Syria? Do you understand that that's why people get concerned about the veracity of the news? The concern was, look, just the nuanced part of this. And you're not taking a horse to a warmer. I get it. You got that as a legitimate medication from a pharmacy. Somebody gave me. That's kind of a joke. My friend Megan brought me. The thing about it is that what people were doing, as you may know, when they had the original trial, they showed that the plasma concentrations that you needed to be antiviral, antiparasitic, it's a very useful tool. Same thing with a lot of medications, by the way,

that they can be very effective for one thing, but not as effective for something else or not as effective at the same dose. What they were finding in some of these trials was that to get the plasma, the blood concentrations high enough, you had to take very high doses that were more in line with- That has nothing to do with me taking horse medication. They shouldn't have called it a horse dewormer. It's just a lie. I am agreeing that they shouldn't have called it that. Are you aware of what's going on in India?

What is the country in India? It's called- Kerala. Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh, yeah. Yeah. How do you say it? Uttar Pradesh. That they handed out ivermectin with this kit for people when they either got COVID or as a prophylactin. They have 230 million people in this country and they've essentially knocked COVID down to almost nothing. This is something that Dr. Pierre Corey from the Frontline Critical COVID Care Project, what's your thoughts on that?

Well, there was two things. I looked at that study pretty carefully. I have relatives who are over there, and I've been talking to docs in India quite a bit just for reporting purposes. I think there's two things. One is that there was one part of the trial that was giving it to people that had COVID, right? So they were using it and people had COVID. I think it's very hard to then say, you know, no, for sure. Was it knocking it down? Because this was after the fact. There was another group that was getting it prophylactically, like you mentioned.

And I even remember like really looking carefully at the dates. It was the spring of this year, right, that we're talking about. carefully at the dates. It was the spring of this year, right, that we're talking about. And what you saw was that there was a significant decline in cases that was already happening when they started doing this. So what was this correlation? Was it causation? I don't know. I'm not sure that you could say for sure whether this was actually preventing COVID in people. It's pretty astonishing though, isn't it? That 230 million people and they've knocked it down to an insanely small amount. You know what happens, Joe, I think, is that that virus really burned through that population.

My uncle died during that spring surge of COVID. So when you get a significant, significant spread, going back to the natural immunity thing, you do get a fair amount of natural immunity. Does that happen anywhere else? Yeah. I mean, I think even if you-

With 230 million people knocked it down, almost nothing. Well, that's a huge number. But I think even if you looked at what happened in the UK and you saw that significant spike, you know, a few months ago, and then it came down really rapidly, what would account for that? I think what accounts for that more than anything is that a lot of people were exposed. They got natural immunity from it and that started to bring the numbers down. The virus doesn't have anywhere to go. Or this widespread distribution of ivermectin was effective because they did distribute it to hundreds of millions of people.

They find in these studies, and I looked at PR studies as well. I looked at the meta-analysis. And what did you think? Well, most of the studies that they use in that meta-analysis, or a few of them at least, were in the lab. So they're trying to basically figure out what dose of ivermectin could be antiviral. We know it can be very effective antiparasitic. What they were finding was that you needed to get pretty high doses. It's going to kill the virus. Haven't they already used it on other RNA viruses in the past?

Like, isn't it something they use for dengue and a few other viruses? I'm mostly familiar with it with parasitic disease, like river blindness and things like that. So I don't know. It could be. I think it's got a history of so i don't know it could be i think it's got a history of use for yellow fever that could be i think but but i think what they were showing and again i i feel badly about this whole horse dewormer thing but that i you know i i'm that's

not that's not a good way to have portrayed that to you but what i'm saying talk to anybody over there about it i haven't talked to anybody. But you're the medical guy. I will talk to them. But it's too late. No, it's not too late. It's too late. They redo it. But I mean, if I would have talked to them, I would have been after the fact. But I will talk to them because I'm curious. But it is kind of silly that a news organization would risk their reputation on such a dumb lie. on such a dumb lie. I think it's to present ivermectin in a way that is, you know, it can be a very effective medication for certain things. And as you point out, it won the Nobel Prize for

what it's done with river blindness. I think the question is, is it effective for COVID? We need more studies. We need more studies. There's been a few randomized control trials, which have not shown much benefit from this. I wish it did. They did the same thing with hydroxychloroquine. That's interesting. I would love to have you talk to Dr. Pierre Corey because he disagrees strongly that they haven't shown. There was one study that he talks about, and I listened to him on your podcast. And I don't know if this is a study that he showed you, but the one that he was referring to on your podcast was one that did look promising. The only problem with the study was that people were also getting dexamethasone, which is a steroid.

And we know dexamethasone can be effective for people who have COVID in terms of preventing them from getting really sick. So was it the dexamethasone? Was it the ivermectin? It's hard to parse out. Most likely a combination of the two. Yeah. And dexamethasone by itself can be really, really effective. Is it prescribed by itself? I was prescribed prednisone. Yeah. So another steroid. So steroids can be very effective. I mean, this is the same sort of thing we talked about with the myocarditis thing, which I still, you know, I want to come back to that as well. But when you have a significant inflammatory response, if you can, like to the disease in this case, if you can knock down that inflammatory response, then it can prevent you from potentially getting very sick,

which is how the steroids seem to work. I want to go back to why you would suggest that I get vaccinated. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Even though I've already had COVID and recovered and have far thicker antibodies than you, sir. Well, I'm not so sure about the thickness of the lines. Oh, it's so important. In this room, we manage. Whose is thicker? Yours or Jamie's? I don't know. We have to battle it out. We have to sword fight. Jamie said Jamie's. Might be. Might be.

He's been exposed twice. Jamie had it in October of last year, correct? Was it? Yeah. Last year, October. And then he was exposed to it somewhere, we think it was like three or four months ago, right? Somewhere around then? Somewhere a couple months ago, he was exposed to it and didn't get sick, but his antibodies fired up.

Like, we saw a significant change in his antibodies. Like I said, we test here. I've been tested hundreds of times. Like, we started testing in April of last year. Right, right. That's when we were told that we were allowed to keep doing podcasts. We said, well, okay, how do we do this correctly? And I stopped doing stand-ups. I wasn't traveling anywhere and just started testing people.

I got to tell you, like when I came here for the podcast, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but it was pretty locked down. I mean, I got swabbed. I got my antibodies tested when I came in here. We have a protocol. We don't allow like Andrew Schultz tried to show up with a posse. We had to kick them all out. By the way, you know what I bought online the other day? What'd you buy?

A JRE mask. Oh, look at that. The JRE masks. I've never even seen those in the wild. Can I see that? Come on, really? I know. You're selling them.

It's got your face on it. Well, someone's selling them. It's a group of people that work for me. Oh, cool. Look at my face. So, I mean, people would say, hey, man. It's a high-quality mask, though. It's very impressive. It seems like a good mask. Made in China, by the way. God damn it.

Did you see that? I didn't. Son of a bitch. So, we could talk about masks. I'll leave this here. Remind us to talk about masks. Do you think they're effective? Yeah, I think they are beneficial. If they weren't effective, we'd just avoid the subject? I think that they can be beneficial.

I think what happens is that, again, people expect a certain level of certainty in saying how effective they are or they're going to be a panacea for things. And nothing is. Have you ever seen the doctor online who vapes through a mask? No. There's a doctor that he thinks that masks are silly and they're really only for surgery. And that really they're just to stop spittle and particles from falling out. He's like these cloth masks that people are using. His argument is essentially like watch this.

And then he uses one of them vapes that blows out all the smoke. And he blows right through them and it comes out the side. He's like this is what's happening if you this. Yeah. And then he uses one of them vapes that blows out all the smoke. And he blows right through them. And it comes out the side. He's like, this is what's happening if you breathe. Yeah. So he doesn't think they're effective at all. I think the cloth mask is definitely not. Although this is a high quality mask.

But the surgical mask's better. Thank you very much. Two ply. I'm not trying to sell these for you, by the way. They're pretty good, right? Although people should wear a mask, I think. And they tighten up on the sides, too. I noticed that.

Yeah. I mean, it's for a particularly big face. Yeah, this is the guy. Look at this guy. Watch. Back it up so he vapes again on the other one. Watch this. So he takes a hit and then blows right through this.

Look at that. So if all that is going out into the air, just like your breath is, how is that protecting you from COVID? Is some of it being caught in that thing? Is that the idea? Like what makes you think like, but those vape particles, they are larger than COVID, correct?

I mean, right. And COVID aerosolizes. Where do you guys find this stuff, by the way? We're online, man. This is a podcast. I got it. You've listened. I listen.

I just like, I don't, you know. You can't be shocked now. Look, I've been. You've listened. I listen. I just like, I don't, you know, I'm shocked now. I've been so immersed in this for two years. Every day I'm reading about this stuff. And, and, um, unfortunately me as well. Yeah. And so, but you guys still seem to find things I haven't seen, but the, the, um, it's not perfect.

You know, I think that the source control, meaning that is this, am I wearing this mask? If I wear this, how much is it protecting me versus how much is it protecting you if I wear it? Right. The source control. Right. I think it offers some protection. And I have made the case many times that if you're going to wear a mask, you probably should wear a high-quality mask, like a KN95. That's what I carry around with me is a KN95.

Can I see the difference between them? I came in an Uber when I came over here. This is bullshit compared to my masks, bro. Well, I'll tell you what. You didn't even know about your masks, okay? You didn't even know about yours. Yours doesn't even adjust. What if you have big ears?

I have a normal-sized face, Joe. You do have a normal-sized face. You have a beautiful face. Thank you very much. No, but it also has these electro, it's electrically charged, so it's supposed to catch things a little bit better than, they take the particles, the fibers, and they electrically statically charge them, so it makes it harder for the particles to get out.

I don't know what it is. Okay. But KN95, it's supposed to block about 95% of particles. It's not by any means perfect, and most people don't wear these. They wear a cloth mask, so it's not going to be as effective. So you suggest that people wear a KN95. That is what you suggest? I think if you're going to wear a mask, then wear a good mask.

What about them dudes who wear bandanas like they're robbing an old West Bank? They would totally be vaping through those things easy. I saw a guy the other day. He didn't even have a fucking mask on. He had a face shield with all this underneath. You could reach under it and touch his face. What are you wearing? What is this?

That's not doing anything. A lot of it doesn't make sense. A lot of it doesn't make sense. I wear masks because I don't want people to feel uncomfortable. That's why I'm wearing them. because I don't want people to feel uncomfortable. That's why I'm, when you're supposed to wear a mask or a mask is suggested, I wear a mask just so people feel at ease

because I see certain people, particularly people that are anxiety ridden, that see someone without a mask and they get upset and they tense up. This has been a strain on a lot of folks that were barely hanging on during normal times. Two years ago, there was people that were filled with anxiety, freaking the fuck out about regular life.

Those people are still around. I recognize that. So when I'm supposed to wear a mask, I don't complain. I put it on, but I don't think it does anything. I feel like when I'm wearing that mask, I'm just placating people and making them feel good, which I'm fine with. We're in a weird time. It doesn't bother me.

But I know people that have gotten sick while wearing a mask. I know a bunch of people. I think at this point, I know three or four people that for sure were wearing a mask when they caught. Yeah, it's by no means perfect at all. But also, you got to keep in mind that when you're wearing the mask, it's most likely it's what's called source control. So you're more likely to to keep from giving it to people to keep from spreading it. Yeah. Not perfect, obviously, from the video.

Not even a little bit. I think that guy, you know, I think he's hamming it up a little bit. What if you breathe heavy? What if you just get there jogging? The guy's really, really heavy. You know? No, but all these things, you know, I think in combination help. Look, this is how I look at it. Right now, things are looking good in terms of the trajectories. Yeah, everything's kind of falling down, right? Hospitalization is coming down.

It's still a fire burning. We still have over 100,000 cases a day. Once we get under 10,000 cases per day, it's an arbitrary number. But if you say, hey, what is it, the point where you say, we feel like we got this under control. The original vaccine was designed to deal with the alpha variant, right? Or the first version. That's right. How much different is it with the Delta and then with all these other ones that are coming up from the rest of the world? Like I know the lambda the was it the woo that the or mu is it move? It's going down the gut alpha the Wu Chang was coming then we're fucked Once the Wu they ain't nothing to fuck with I don't you know that the the the other variants don't look as they don't look as

As bad as Delta so Delta, but I thought the lambda was a dish was a really as bad as Delta. So Delta, but I thought the Lambda was a real issue. Lambda, they're keeping an eye on it, but Delta still appears to be more contagious

than that one. So Delta was a particularly bad variant, you know? Yeah, that's what I got. That's what you got. Yeah, because it was what, a month, two months ago now? Yeah, and the way I got it

was just being dumb. I mean- You're in Florida. In Florida doing concerts in the round. So what that means is, is it's an arena and, uh, there was 14,000 people and you're in the center. So here everyone's screaming, they're laughing. So that's spraying out. And then when you get off stage, you have

to walk through the crowd to get back to the, to the green room. So you're in a high five and people walking through people's breathing on me. Then we went out drinking and playing pool and didn't get back until we quit playing pool at 3.30 in the morning. Yeah, so I was exhausted. How do you do that? I mean, just aside from pandemic. I mean, I'm 51. How old are you now? 54.

How do you do it, man? I exercise and I take vitamins, sir. You exercise so you can go play pool until 3.30 go play pool till 3 3 I'm trying to suck life dry I'm trying to enjoy myself and that's how I enjoy my I'm a big fan of pool. I Enthusiast well, that's my addiction and the next day you weren't sure because the next day I was hungover So I assumed it was the hangover my god for shit But it was the hangover. I was like, God, I feel like shit. But it was like headachy, you know, hangover type thing. But then I did a show that night.

No problem. Show was great. Had a great time in Orlando. Shout out to Orlando. And then got on a plane, and when I was on the plane, I was like, I am weary. Like, in a weird way. It was an odd weary. And I was like, I'm weary, like in a weird way. It was an odd weary. And I was like, I'm just going to keep an open mind about this.

But then when I got home, I was in my house. I was like, something's up. And I told my wife, I said, how about I'm going to go to a different part of the house. I go, I really feel like I have it. And she's like, you look great. And I was like, yeah, I know. But you were getting tested regularly then, weren't you? Yes.

So did you know you had it at that point? No. It didn't test positive yet. No, because we didn't bring the test kit to Florida. Got it. But when I got back, I was like, I feel like I caught something there. I'm not sure, but let me just isolate. Because I knew something was off.

I was hoping I was just going to recover and be fine. Because I was talking normal. I wasn't coughing or anything like that. But then, um, in the middle of the night, I was sweating a lot and I had like chills and I was like, ah, I think I got it. So then we got tested on Sunday and then, um, I started immediately getting treatment. So Sunday was the only, the real rough day. And he wasn't even, you know, I've had the flu before. It was like the flu. So how, like, yeah. How, how bad was it overall? I wasn't even, you know, I've had the flu before. It was like the flu. So how bad was it overall? I was walking around, you know, doing stuff. Do you wish you didn't have it though?

Yeah. Oh, of course. I mean, it wasn't, but I was also kind of relieved to get it over with because I feel like, you know, there's a lot of people that, you know, they feel like they just want to catch it and then recover. So they have the antibodies. I was in that category. I don't know. I'm not saying it's wise. I'm not saying it's a smart thing. It's not. But my feeling when I got it was good. I got it. Let's just get through this. I knew I was healthy. I knew I'd take care of myself, and I knew I was most likely going to bounce back quickly. That turned out to actually be the case.

So I was correct. Most people aren't as healthy as you. They should get healthy. Should they get the vaccine, though? We should encourage them. We should encourage them to get healthy. Topic number five, right? If we're going to do that, we should, first of all, encourage them to get healthy, because

getting healthy will prevent a lot of things, like heart disease, which kills way more people than any disease. I mean, what we're dealing with with COVID is 95% of the people have four comorbidities that die, right? When you're dealing with heart disease, you're just getting heart disease, right? Some of it is obviously you're born with it. You're born with like certain predetermined is obviously you're born with it. You're born with certain predetermined conditions that you have no control over. But there's a lot of people that are making poor life choices. We don't say anything to those folks. To tell them that an injection of a pharmaceutical drug is the answer to their problems, I think is not true. It's not accurate. It is a band-aid on one problem, but the overall

metabolic health is poor. And that's one of the reasons why their bodies in decline. When you're dealing with people that have four comorbidities, outside of genetic conditions, we're dealing with so many lifestyle choices in this country. There's people that are just not exercising, are not drinking enough water, are not taking vitamins, are not being healthy, are not making healthy choices. These things should be encouraged above and beyond

because those are the things that can get your body to a place where it can be better, it'll perform better, you'll think better, you'll feel better, you'll have better relationships with feel better yeah you'll have better relationships with with people you'll you'll your life will work better because you're not in this

constant state of decay yeah i i look joe i 100 agree with you i spent a lot of time in the book writing about this if you were obese uh by the way 42% of the country is either obese or morbidly obese you hear that Bert Kreischer 42% so so and you were for are you shaming somebody just a joke well the the the risk of the risk of getting severe disease was four to five times higher if you were obese. So this is a big problem. But why don't we encourage people? Why is there all this talk of just go and get vaccinated? Why isn't the president, why isn't the press secretary, why isn't all these major news?

Why are they saying? All they have to say, get vaccinated? That's all that's all you ever hear. Why isn't there? You've got to take care of your body. It's the front line and not just for COVID, but the front line defense for everything that ails us. I think that it's been an issue for a long time. It remains an issue. It needs to be addressed. I think when you're dealing with an acute crisis in the middle of a pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people have died. It's not to say don't get healthy, not saying, hey, ignore that. But that's not going to take care of the problem as rapidly as, you know, look. There's been thousands of discussions and almost no discussion of the fact that 78% of the people that wind up in the hospital for COVID are obese, right? Yeah, I think, right. And 113% in the ICU and whatever.

It's a much- 113%. More likely to end up- How do you get more than 100%? 113% more likely to end up versus those. But yeah, this needs to be addressed. Joe, we spend four trillion dollars a year on health care in this country. Seventy percent of the diseases are probably totally preventable.

And most of that is lifestyle. And most of that even more specifically is diet. So I think there's always been, again, going back to the nuance of these discussions. People say, hey, look, you know, we can't shame people who are obese., look, you can't shame people who are obese. And no, nobody's saying shame people who are obese. They're saying there's a real problem in this country. If we spent 1% of our healthcare budget on actually helping people get fit

and making sure they had healthy food and whatever it may be, it would go a long way. We don't do that. This expression, you can't shame people, is that it's been distorted down to the point where even bringing up the fact that someone is obese is shaming them. And that is ridiculous. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

That's what gets in the way. And it doesn't need to get in the way of this. We can have a good, smart discussion about this. And doctors and nurses, they need to be talking about this stuff with their patients. I write a lot about this in the book, you know, even the microbiome, like what you've eaten in the morning could probably have some impact on how you might fare if you were to get the disease later on that night. I mean, 80% of our immunity is in our gut, the gut associated lymphoid tissue. So there's a lot, you know, that we need to be doing. I mean, what struck me about this pandemic is that wealthier countries almost across the board got hit harder than poorer countries. It's interesting. Diseases of affluence. Yeah. Well,

I mean, wealthier countries, but is it wealthier people in those countries that are getting hit disproportionately harder? Well, it's obese people. Right. And that, and that there's certain, you know, the demographics, you know, whatever. But if you just compare country to country, wealthier countries, you think of malaria, tuberculosis, you think of poorer countries with fewer resources. With COVID, it was wealthier countries. And there's, there's a few reasons why, but we did not, we're not healthy. It's an overeating issue. We're not healthy. Overeating and poor diet is a huge issue. And it's it's really stunning when you go back and you look at what people looked like in the 1920s, the 1930s, and you compare it to what people look like today. Yeah. You know, we are so sloppy now. even more specifically at this virus, it probably likes to hang out in fat cells, going back to the long haulers thing. You asked me earlier, why would people who are obese be more likely to develop long hauling symptoms? We don't know for sure, but the virus may be

sticking around longer in people like that. Overall, but the issue is not the virus, right? They test negative of the virus, even on PCR tests with these long haulers. The issue is rather the disease damaging their body to the point where they can't repair correctly. Right. They get these high levels of inflammation that just don't come down. They continue to have deterioration as a result of that. It affects just about every organ system in the body. I was telling you about my friend who is a long hauler. It's Cody Garbrandt.

He's a former ufc bantamweight champion he had no idea he had covet he was just really wrecked and kept training and run the problem is like a lot of these guys particularly these ufc fighters is another guy hamzak chamayev had the same problem they don't want to not train right they're such savages that like when they get sick they're like this cold, I'm going to the gym and they work out while they're sick. COVID is very, like I've had many friends that have said they started feeling good and then they worked out and they kicked it back in.

I waited until I was negative, until I was negative before I started training. And even when I worked out the first day back, I took it pretty easy. I just wanted to see what my body felt like. But some of these guys, they're nuts. They're professional cage fighters. So that makes sense.

And I know another guy who was a cyclist who kind of did the same thing. He was getting better and then he worked out and fucked himself up again. Yeah, I mean, what do you mean? He got it again, you're saying? No, he was starting to get better, but he was still sick and he worked out. And then he got way worse. This is what happened with Cody. He was sick for weeks because he wouldn't give his body a break because he's a fucking maniac.

Well, I mean, it's like any other illness. But my point is that's a very different thing calling him a long hauler because I think that if he just sat around and did nothing, he would have bounced back from it very quickly. Right. Whereas an obese person, they just have a hard time with all diseases. This is going to serve as a significant wake-up call, I think, for the overall health of the country. There's no question. We think about this in terms of, you know, I don't want to have a heart attack when I'm 70, so I will eat right now. You know, this showed us just how vulnerable we can be and how quickly we can see that vulnerability.

I mean, two years and this exposed just how much these poor health conditions can, you know, affect us in the short term. You know what's really good for your health? This bourbon you gave me. This is super good. Imagine a doctor giving you something that's like one of the worst things. Read the title. Do you want to have a drink of it? Sure. Have a little sip? Yeah. All right, come on, things. Read the title. Do you want to have a drink of it? Sure.

Have a little sip? Yeah. All right. Come on, man. Read the title. It's a beautiful bottle. Doc. Yeah.

Is that why you got it? Yeah. You know? Then the alter ego part. Oh. What about the alter ego? I just had my alter ego had to show up to do the Joe Rogan podcast. Oh, really?

No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's a good bottle. I like the bottle. It is a good bottle. I've the bottle. It is a good bottle. I've never had this. Well, me neither. So did we cover everything?

I think so. This myocarditis thing, does this- Cheers, buddy. Thanks for having me, Joe. Thanks for being here, man. I enjoyed talking to you. I'm glad we did this. I told some friends I was having you on.

They were like, what? I was like, he's a nice guy. I talked to him on the phone. They say, Joe Rogan, you're crazy. Why would you have him on? I've heard that before. No, about having me on. Oh. No? Well, they just, a lot of people think I hate CNN now, which I don't.

You don't? No. Well, that's the I still watch TNN look I think news organizations have a very specific Function in our society it's a very important function and it's to tell people what's going on to inform people When they lie about things like that It's so pointless to me because it's not like I don't have a platform to tell people that you lied

And it's not that people don't figure out very quickly that it's a lie. But we already have probably the highest level of distrust in mainstream media that we've ever had ever in our lives. I don't know if that's because of Trump calling everything fake news. I don't know. It's because of people exposing things that some parts of the news that weren't accurately displayed or depicted. I don't know what it is, but I have a great deal of respect for journalism. I think real journalism is incredibly important, but I think there's an issue today where too much emphasis is put on ratings. Too much emphasis is put on sensationalism, exaggeration, hyperbole, changing the headlines in order to get people to pay attention. This is dangerous, I think. I think we need real, hardcore investigations, objective journalism where people just tell

stories for what they are. This is what they are. Let's examine what the actual news is and let's distribute it to people for the greater good of mankind. I don't think- Amen. Yeah. I mean, I think for the most part, that's what CNN does.

I think that for the most part, that's what CNN does. I think that for the most part, that's what Fox News does. But when we get ideologically conflicted and distort these narratives in order to sell clicks, in order to get people to tune in, like that to me is not just dangerous, but foolhardy. Because it changes the way people view the news. They don't view the news like they viewed the news when I was a kid. When I was a kid, if you watch CNN or if you watch any news source, you assume that what they were telling you was the truth. There has probably never been a higher level of distrust in mainstream news than there is today. distrust in mainstream news than there is today. Yeah. I mean, I, I, it has changed. There's no question about it. It's become much more opinion based, especially some shows, you know, the, there's a lot of editorializing, even the way that things will be presented with modifiers, you know, it was just this, or, you know, can you believe X? So you kind of given a, a way to think

about this. I think not that I want to bring this up again, you know, the whole ivermectin thing, but I think that the reason there were, the FDA put that out there saying, you know, this is- I think someone at CNN told them, let's make some money. I don't, I don't know. Let's get people to tune in. They like you, Joe. Let's make, no, they don't. Stop lying.

I like you. I like you too. Yeah. I like Jake Tapper. Jake Tapper's a good guy. I think he's a- They're all good guys. He. I like you too. Yeah. I like Jake Tapper. Jake Tapper's a good guy. I think he's a- They're all good guys. He's a very good journalist.

Yeah. And, you know, so, I mean- There's a lot of clowns on your network too, though. You know that, right? Yeah, I'm going to get into that. These are my friends. I'm sure. These are my friends.

You party with those dudes? And they're high now. Play grab ass? These are my friends. You party with those dudes? And they're high now. Play grab ass? They are leaving this horse, the horse dewormer thing, which I know bothers you. I think that this came about because the FDA is saying-

There's no excuse. There's no excuse. There's no excuse. You can't. It was not kind. You're not going to talk your way out of this. It's nonsense. It's not that it's not kind.

It's just a lie. It's dumb. Well, it's used as that kind. It's just a lie. It's dumb. Well, it's used as that, but that's not how you were using it. Do you think people believed it? There's a small percentage of people that aren't online that believed it. Everyone else is like, wow, look at CNN lying. But, you know, it's just one of these things where, again, we're allowed to have nuanced conversations about these things. I'm not disagreeing with you.

That was insulting. I get it. But when you look at these things in terms of how you think versus what you think, again, like the vaccine, I'm still like part of me thinks, would you ever, would you have gotten it? I almost got it. Okay, so what happened? Let me tell you what happened. I was supposed to get it. You've gotten it.

I almost got it. Okay, so what happened? Let me tell you what happened. I was supposed to get it. The UFC had allocated a bunch of doses for all of their employees, and I came down on Friday, and I said, hey, can I get vaccinated? And they said, yes, let's set it up. And then right before the event started, they said, you're going to have to come to the hospital.

Can you come on Monday? Because I guess whatever the CDC requirements are going to have to come to the hospital. Can you come on Monday? Because I guess whatever the CDC requirements are, you have to be in a hospital setting or I don't know what it was. This is in Vegas. I don't know where the rules are. And I said, I can't be here Monday. I said, I have a previous obligation. I said, but I'll be back in two weeks. Let's do it in two weeks. I'll come in a day early. And they said, great. In the meantime, Johnson & Johnson got pulled. Shortly thereafter that one of my friends had a stroke and I'm like, oh Jesus and Johnson Johnson got pulled because of that because of blood clots and then I shouldn't say one of my friends a guy now and

Then I got concerned and then I had another friend who had a very bad adverse reaction This is a guy who had had kovat and recovered and then got vaccinated he got one dose and he got hit really hard and he was bedridden for 11 days and developed all this fluid built up inside of his body. And then I knew another guy. Yeah. And then there's the guy from jujitsu that had a heart attack and, and two strokes. And I was like, Jesus Christ. I got nervous about it. And I also got nervous that some of these things are being underreported. Because when I talked to some of these people, I was like, was it submitted to the VAERS report? No, they weren't submitted to the VAERS report. So I'm like, how many people have had adverse reactions that were submitted versus

not submitted? And I do know that some of the people that submit things to the VAERS report, they're not telling the truth. They're making things up. There's a lot of, you know, whenever you have like an open forum like that, you're going to get a lot of bullshit, right? So who knows how much of it is true and how much of it is not. So then I started researching therapeutics and talking to people about therapeutics and the conversation with Dr. Pierre Corey and Brett Weinstein. And, you know, and there's many schools of thoughts on this. Some people think everyone should get vaccinated. Some people think we should only vaccinate the very vulnerable. And what we should do is concentrate on improving the metabolic health

of the general population and having therapeutics in place. I think we should improve the general health of the population. I think that's a no-brainer. It'll take time, you know, and we're in the middle of this right now. I don't think you're going to be able to do that, though. Well, I think if we spent 1% of our $4 trillion that we spend on health care every year to actually get people healthy. But I don't think you can. Well, I don't think it's hard to motivate people.

Well, Joe, I mean, isn't so if that's the case, then what doesn't that make a stronger case for the vaccine? Then if you're if you're basically saying, hey, we can't do that. People are just going to be sick and vulnerable. And by the way, that's half the country, probably more when you talk about obesity and diabetes and the other comorbidities that are associated with this. You're talking about hundreds of millions of people. Yeah. So are we just going to say, if you're going to say, hey, look, can't do it, then doesn't that make the case that we need to vaccinate? I think it makes a good case to vaccinate vulnerable people, and that includes obese people. I have some obese friends that I've encouraged to get vaccinated.

I know, you're making fun of one of them right behind me. Bert's been vaccinated. Good, all right. He had to. He's doing a big movie. me. Bert's been vaccinated. Oh, good. All right. He had to, he's doing a big movie. So, so would you now with what you know now and, and having had COVID, would you have, would you have wished that you had been vaccinated beforehand? But I got vaccinated. Yeah. But again, I explained all that, but I got through COVID pretty quickly. Yeah. So that was my thought was I'm a healthy person. I exercise constantly.

I'm always taking vitamins. I take care of myself. I felt like I was going to be okay, and that was true. It was correct. I'm happy. I got through it. I don't wish it upon anyone. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't the worst cold I've ever had.

And I got over it fairly quickly, relatively speaking. I think that, and again, I am truly glad about that. I'm not, all kidding aside, I don't think anybody wishes you, everyone wants you to be well and healthy. But I think the question is just in terms of the nuance of this. It's not a strategy to recommend people get infected. I'm not recommending anybody get infected. So they should get vaccinated. I think a lot of people should get vaccinated. You're talking a lot of vulnerable people. If you just said vulnerable people,

yeah, older people, fat people. I think a lot of those folks. My real concern is this urge to vaccinate children. And I don't know what kind of data we have on the long-term effects of this. And I don't know what kind of data we have. When you look at this study that shows that the 12 to 15-year-old boys are four to six times more likely. Is that the number? Whatever the number was. Much more likely. That scares the shit out of me.

Thankfully, it's really small numbers, period. Right, period. Right, period. So again, I don't know that we've settled this whole myocarditis thing. Maybe we won't today, but I worried about this, okay, because I have kids. So, you know, the thing about a pandemic,

it's not just me reporting like I go to Haiti and I report on an earthquake. I'm living this as well. And I, Joe, I did deep dives into this and the myocarditis thing specifically came up. And what I found was that there's a certain background rate of myocarditis. There's a certain rate that people would get from the vaccines, and there's a certain rate that they would get from the disease itself. This is really good whiskey.

Do you like it? It's very good. Good. You didn't say anything at first. I was worried. It's very good. You're the expert. You're the connoisseur. No, it's very good. Good't say anything at first i was worried it's very good you're the you're the expert you're the connoisseur and no it's very good yeah i'm glad to hear that doc swinson's doc swinson's very good i um kind of like relieves

your anxiety a little bit right yeah smooth yeah so so we we made the decision based on the risk reward proposition yeah to get our kids vaccinated okay now. Now, there's another part of it, though, that I think is important. And you brought this up on another podcast, which is that it limits their chance of them being spreaders of this virus. I want to bring this thing to an end. And I know that- Do you think that that's possible? To bring it down to control. Control. I think this virus is probably here, just like there's descendants of the 1918 flu pandemic that still linger. We now have it under much better control. By the way, flu still kills up to 60,000 people a year.

So I think this virus is here to stay, but it will be a more inconsequential virus. Let me put it that way. Part of getting there is to really bring down the amount of transmission. If you could see the virus, you would see it being sort of a viral storm. You know, you'd actually see that we're being showered in virus, kind of like your vaping guy over here. You know, it's just a lot of virus out there. So if you have more and more people who have immunity and the virus runs out of places to go, not perfect. Again, eight times less likely to get infected. Not perfect.

But eventually it starts to really wither down. And I think having more and more people immunized helps that. What do you think about the discussion about leaky viruses, excuse me, leaky vaccines and that leaky vaccines. Leaky gut? No, leaky vaccines. And that leaky vaccines. Leaky gut? No, leaky vaccines. Vaccines still allow people to get infected and that they help the virus select for more aggressive variants.

Yeah, this is an interesting point. So this idea that somehow, you know, like kind of like antibiotic resistance, you could be developing resistance to the vaccines because the types of viruses that are then allowed to... But the virus will select for it. Because the vaccines target a very specific protein, that some of these variants that are more aggressive, like particularly the Delta or whatever one they are, that the virus will then propagate through selection of more aggressive variants. Yeah, I think that the idea that the more the virus spreads, the more variants come out is real. If the idea is that more people having immunity, I use the term generally. Immunity to the very specific original variant. Right. If more people have immunity to that, does that then select for more Delta or more whatever that's coming down the line? Maybe.

But I think ultimately, if you just slow down the spread, that's what's won in the past or at least brought these things under control in the past. Traditionally, when viruses do mutate and change, they tend to change towards more spreadable but less dangerous viruses typically, but that doesn't mean they have to do that, right? That's exactly what I've heard as well, is that they want to find hosts. They don't want to kill their hosts. They'd rather their hosts stay alive, us human beings, but they want to spread, you know, be able to spread easily, which is kind of what we saw with Delta. It's not clear to me that Delta is actually more dangerous than the other variants. It's just, it's very contagious, you know? So people who got away with things earlier in the

pandemic were less likely to get away with it with Delta. Yeah. And I think that was me because there was a two separate occasions where I was around a lot of people that got sick. One time in the green room of a concert where everybody got sick but me. I mean everybody. And then another time where my whole family got sick and I didn't get sick. But I did feel like shit. There was two days where I was working out and I was like, something's going on. Like where during normal activities I felt fine yeah but then under

exertion i felt a diminished capacity for work like when i was doing workouts i was like god i feel draggy right and i knew something was going on so i've done that before and i've gotten myself sick by being a meathead that was you know years past but now when that happens what i do is i just basically go through the motions very lightly. And I break a sweat, stretch out, and get out of there. So I get the benefits of exercise with the endorphins. And you get your circulatory system pumps and your respiratory system pumps. And you get a good little, you know, you get some activity.

But no stress, no strain. Right. And I did that for two days and I was good. But the second day was the same thing. I was like, something's going on. My whole family got COVID during that time period. My wife got it. My two kids got it.

Are they all okay? Yeah. My older kid didn't get it, but she knew that we had it. And so she didn't come by, but we're good. But I knew that I had encountered it and that my immune system had fought it off and I think I probably I mean I like to think that I probably would have fought it off in Florida too if it wasn't for getting hammered and staying out to 3 in the morning playing pool I

feel like that part of your life's not gonna change that uh probably not it's a lot of fun dude see that's one of the reasons why I stay healthy. Yeah, no, good for you. So I can still have fun. I'm impressed. I'm having a harder and harder time doing that as I've gotten older. I can't go out. Yeah, you've got to get angry. I've got to get angry? You've got to get angry before you work out.

Is that what it is? Yeah, you can't lackadaisically approach your fitness. Your fitness has to be like a life or death battle as you get older. I'm very inspired to be fit. I really am. And because I feel good, right? I think part of it is I just want to be healthy and live a long time. You feel better. I feel good. And I think that's closing the loop. A lot of times you tell people to eat right and exercise and then nothing will happen to you. And it's not the most inspiring message, right? Wow. But if I tell you, feel good. Now, just on your vaccine, though, just

this one point I will make. You're a vaccine salesman. Are you working for Pfizer? I'm not a vaccine salesman. Hey, you know, you texted me when I asked about the natural immunity thing, and I think you're raising a really good point about natural immunity. I think the issue a little bit, Joe, and this is more just because I care about you. Oh, thanks. I do. No, I do. Is that we don't have good data on how long the natural immunity lasts. We don't have good data on how long the vaccine immunity lasts either. We get in some, which is showing that there's some waning against mild disease.

Right. But against severe disease, it's still pretty good. SARS-CoV-1, the original SARS. Very good. 17, 18 years later, there's a T-cell immunity. it's still pretty good. SARS-CoV-1, the original SARS. Very good. 17, 18 years later. There's a T-cell immunity. Jamie's got fat pipes. He's one year in. He's very proud of that.

This guy's our test subject. He's our canary in a coal mine. Look at him. He got it again, though, right? No, he didn't. No, he didn't get it again. No, he never got sick. Got exposed again, I guess.

He got exposed again, but he was- He did not get sick. He never stopped working out, never stopped working. He never tested. He tests every day just like guess. He got exposed again, but he was- He did not get sick. He never stopped working out, never stopped working. He never got, never tested. He tests every day just like everybody. He never tested positive. Would you, the idea of getting another, so some countries are doing this. Why?

Some countries are doing this. Let me ask you this. I'm going to tell you. Why would I get vaccinated? I'm going to tell you. Why would I get vaccinated? When you know I have better immunity than someone who's been vaccinated. That's true.

I don't know how long it lasts. So if that's true, this conversation's over. I don't know how long it lasts. Because you're encouraging non-vaccinated people to get vaccinated, right? Which would be better. Why don't you encourage them to get sick as well? Then they could be as healthy as me. I don't know where to go.

I got you, bro. No, no. I got you. Want another drink? I'm still working on my first one here. Come on, man. Get in there. All right. I'll be pussyfooting around with this.

So if I said, and then you're going to ask me how I know, which I get, but if I said you're likely to have longer-term immunity, there was a study that came out of Kentucky. Cheers, brother. Cheers. Thank you. This is brother. This is fun. You know, I go on CNN and I'm pretty much, as I said, not that fun. Well, people, people are, we're all saying the same thing, right? I wanted to come talk to you because I felt like we could have a conversation and maybe I could even convince you of a few things. Like convince me to get vaccinated on top of the fact that I've already got antibodies that are stronger than vaccinated people.

Good luck. There was a study that came out of Kentucky that showed. Oh, is this how long we've been talking, by the way? No, no, no, no. We've been talking for about two hours and 20 minutes. It's amazing. You know, I watch I listen and watch your podcast. I can't.

You know, it strikes me that so many people are moving towards these really abbreviated things like there was Quibi. You know, like we'll do this in two minutes. Yeah, that didn't work out so good, did it? No. And then I'm thinking like the number one podcast in the country are these two to three hour conversations. But I tell you, there was an accident. It wasn't by like I designed it saying that, you know, if I have these long, long conversations, it'll do better. I just like to do that. That is what I,

I don't feel like you get to know someone until like an hour into talking to them. I think you're right. I think you wear them down. You wear me down and then you like flash up some study and you're like, you know, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Well, I knew, I really want to tell you this. I knew when you changed your tune on marijuana, that you were a good person. And I knew that that's a difficult thing to do. And so then when Sina, our friend Sina reached out and said, uh, Sanjay Gupta wants to talk to you. I was like, oh shit. I go, I'll talk to that guy.

And then we talked on the phone. I'm like, you're a nice guy. I'm like, let's do a podcast. Okay, let's do it. Well, I, I, I really appreciate it. And I, and I, as you know, I was wanting to talk to you even aside from a podcast. Yes. Because I'm curious how you think about things.

And a lot of people listen to you, Joe. And I think a lot of people depend on you. I don't like that. Well, I mean, they're taking your cues. I'll quit. No. They're taking your cues on things. And that's, you know, I think with the vaccine, I think that what you've said and I heard you say it afterwards that you're not anti-vax at all.

And and even that 21 year old thing that made all the 21 year old guests you had on the show or no, it was a friend of yours. I think that you were he asked you, should he get vaxxed? No, no, no. I was talking about young people like a 21 year old healthy person. Yeah. Did you get vaccinated? And I didn't think you should because i think you could beat it fairly easily but then you but then afterwards you said hey look what hasn't been explained well is exactly why he should get vax beyond uh the fact that you know he's likely to recover well but could he be potentially someone who is a source of spread and that was sounded like from what you said that was of concern to you right well? Well, that was one of the things that Fauci had said like, you know, he responded to me saying that if you only are concerned about yourself, but that if you're talking about spreading it to other people, that's, you know, your responsibility to the community is different. I go, okay, well, that's a different argument.

Yeah. And I see his point. But I think really the response to that, I think what I would like is far more comprehensive testing. I think that would solve a lot of our problems in terms of spread. And I think there's a tremendous amount of spread that's unnecessary, that if people knew they were infected, we could have cut that down radically. Yes. We've never had testing right in this country. We still don't know. I mean, the other day a study came out that said 43 million confirmed cases of COVID in the country. I think it's way higher than that because we just don't know. We don't know. We have no

idea. That's a problem. I've had quite a few friends that were sick and weren't sure if they got COVID. And then we brought them in here four or five months later and gave them an antibody test. And it turns out they had had it. You know, when you talk about your friends. By the way, was that 19-year-old? I'm really curious about the story of the 19-year-old who needed a heart transplant. Do you have that, Jamie? Yeah, I found one place that said it was claiming it was due to that.

And then I found other places that said that the doctors didn't know exactly why she had that. Yeah, the family says that it's 100% from the vaccine, that she got vaccinated right afterwards, and they didn't want to submit it to the VAERS. There's a lot of hesitancy amongst hospitals and doctors in submitting things to the VAERS because they don't want to contribute to vaccine hesitancy. Do you agree with that? Yeah. It's not a very good system either, right?

Because you have both. You have people who submit things that are not. Right. Fake stories. And then other people not submitting. So I don't know that it's a really, but I just don't. This is the one that said it that way, just so you can see it. Got it.

It's, I mean, it's a sad, sad story. That's really. She's 19. She had a heart transplant one month after developing what her doctors believe is myocarditis following her second dose of Moderna. So what's really sad is she gets the heart transplant and then the immunosuppressant drugs caused her to succumb to pneumonia and then she dies of pneumonia. I mean, how do you just there's no chance

she would have died from covid you i mean a fucking infinitesimally small chance i think when when you when you put it all together just again in terms of how you think you're not anti-vax no still despite that there are there are stories like that and i'm gonna again you've given me two things i'm gonna look at one is this story 19 year old, and the other one is the hospitalization rates among these young people versus the vaccine. But overall, you know, when you just put it all together, you would still recommend people get vaccinated. I would definitely recommend people who are vulnerable get vaccinated. And definitely people who are thinking about getting vaccinated and think that's the right option for them to get vaccinated. But I'm not a person that should recommend anything

health-wise. No, I get that. I think that sometimes people will, because a lot of people listen to you. That's a problem. See, the thing is like, I'm not trying to get people to, I'm not telling people to listen to me. I'm not telling people to follow my suggestions. I'm just talking. And it's become this thing where millions of people listen. And it's not, I mean, it wasn't by design. I know. Right? And the idea that I'm supposed to change how I talk about stuff now because it's really popular. Well, then guess what? It won't be popular anymore. One of the reasons why it works

is because I don't have a filter. When you were talking to me right here, if you and I were at a restaurant, it would be the same conversation. if you and I were at a restaurant, it would be the same conversation. If you and I am at my house, same conversation. What I figured out a way to do is be professionally be me. I could be me professionally. The only time it really varies is when I do UFC commentary because then I'm very professional because this is like a profound respect to have for the athletes. And my job is very different there. It's just to give life and to, to put words to their performances.

That's, that's the difference. That's the only job I have. I feel like when I listened to you and even this conversation now is a very authentic conversation. And I think it's, that's all I have. You don't have,

we don't have enough of that overall in society. So if I'm authentic, I can tell people don't take my advice Take the advice of people who are professionals listen to you and then also listen to other professionals like dr Pierre Corey and decide for yourself listen to evolutionary biologists like Brett Weinstein listen to various real experts What I'm doing is just having conversations with people. And if you

want to listen, you can listen. But my advice to you is to not take my advice. Do you have like certain levels of evidence or facts that you say, okay, well, this is going to convince me one way or another? Yes, most certainly. Not everything can have the same weight in your... Yes. So like, you know, ivermectin, I won't call it the stuff that makes you upset. Horstie Wormer? Yeah, I won't call it that.

You're the only person on CNN that just calls it ivermectin. Come on. Matt, you know, it's so funny, when we spoke on the phone, I'm like, wow, he really took that seriously, this whole thing. I mean, it's like, you don't strike me as someone whose ego would be bruised or anything. It's not an ego thing. I know, I know. It has nothing to do with ego.

I know, I know. They're lying on TV and they're the news. Like, legitimately, if you know that they're lying about you and you see that, you go, okay, well, what are they saying about Hunter Biden? What are they saying about Russia? What are they saying about Syria? What are they saying about Russia? What are they saying about Syria? How do I know if they're telling the truth about all these other very important things when this insignificant thing of a dumb comedian taking a medication?

Can I just tell you, I'm sorry that I brought this up again. So, no, but just level of evidence wise. Yes. So ivermectin versus vaccine. Does one have a lot more evidence behind it? Well, one has a lot more use in this country that we're aware of, right? That's for sure. When you compare, we need to figure out what the fuck is actually going.

How do you say that? The country in India again? Uttar Pradesh. It's a region. Uttar Pradesh. It's a region. India is a country. So they don't think of it as, well, India is a country, obviously.

But is it a county? I'm sorry. I think it's a region or a state, I think of it as well. India is a country right obviously, but the the count is it a county? I'm sorry. It's a I think it's a region or a state I think a state Yeah, and it's crazy that a state has 230 million people. I mean, you know, it's like how big India is It's like I know right when and funny when they described Wuhan as a little town in central China 11 million population Right bigger than Manhattan small town. We live in a, we're 4% of the world's population here. But yes, so ivermectin. Yeah, the evidence of what that, I'd like to see what's going on there.

Yeah, no, I looked at that and I think these things are definitely worth looking at. I really do spend a lot of time reading these studies and trying to make decisions and judgments on my own, in part for my own family and myself, my parents. I mean, when you say the thing about people getting really sick and having strokes after a vaccine, for my parents who are probably listening right now, they're in their late 70s, that's going to scare the shit out of them. But ironically, those are the people that are less likely to have adverse side effects. My parents breezed through it.

Both my parents got vaccinated and it was nothing. I know. But it still scares people though. My mom literally felt nothing. She didn't feel any fatigue, nothing. But the vaccine has some 6 billion shots that have now been given around the world. 40,000 people. Ivermectin has some data.

It's not, you know, there's still a clinical trial that's just starting in South Carolina, so we're going to get more data on Ivermectin. Clinical trial in Ivermectin? Yeah, who's conducting that? I'm not sure if it's the university or it's another group, but they just saw the announcement for the... Do you know what the dosage is?

I don't. 300, does that sound right? I can't remember. 300. I may have the dose wrong. Don't quote me on that. I think the current recommendation is 0.6 milligrams per kilogram. Oh, okay.

So I think what I was taking was 18 milligrams. I think I was taking an 18 milligram dose. Got it. So maybe it's 30. I don't remember what the dose is. But there are trials that are still happening. And whereas with the vaccine, there's a lot of data. And then, you know, you bring up the long-term effects.

We're going to need to know at that dosing, which is probably going to be higher dosing than treating, you know, river blindness and things like that. What is the dose of treating river blindness? I don't know. and things like that. What is the dose of treating revivolus? I don't know, but the blood concentrations you needed in those studies that Pierre talks about as well were much higher doses in order to get the antiviral effect, at least in the lab.

So if you're trying to replicate that in the body, you're probably going to need higher doses. You're talking about the in vitro? That's right, in vitro versus in vivo. The in vitro studies that showed the ceasing of viral replication that the studies are talking about. So I just like in terms of how you think about this, like the vaccine has a lot of data behind it. There's obviously some terrible stories, which I'm going to look at here. I had not heard about, for example, this 19 year old.

But for the most part, it has a lot of data behind it that shows that it is safe and that it's effective in terms of keeping people from getting super sick. Can I say one thing that's really important too? Yeah. I know that people are going to bring this up. I am very aware that these rare anecdotal stories like this woman who's 19 years old, it's not, you can't take that as the, you know, absolute, this is what's going to happen to people. These rare stories of this young, poor young lady. I'm very aware that these are unusual, but that gives no comfort to the family that lost that daughter.

I totally agree. No, trust me, man. I get, my chest hurts a little bit when I read stories like that. And what bothers me is- My daughter's 16 years old. What bothers me at 19 years old, it is, especially when you look at her

and she's very fit and young, highly unlikely she would have had a problem with COVID. Yeah, I agree. That drives me crazy. I wanted to know, I'm gonna deep dive there. I'm going to, I there. I'm going to. I promise you look into that. But overall, just statistically speaking, you do have one of the most studied therapeutics or products now, this vaccine, on the planet.

We've had an incredible amount of people take it over a short period of time, but very understudied in terms of long-term consequences. Would you agree to that? The only way you can study long-term is with the passage of time, but very understudied in terms of long-term consequences. Would you agree to that? The only way you can study long-term is with the passage of time. Right. That's what I'm concerned about. I know, but Joe- That's what a lot of people are concerned about. Joe, but you're not going to wait 10 years before you give vaccines in the middle of a pandemic. If 99.7 people survive, is that accurate or somewhere in that range? You know, I've heard a 0.5% mortality rate, roughly. So 99.7 people survive. Is that accurate or somewhere in that range?

You know, I've heard a 0.5% mortality rate roughly. So 99.5. And you know of two people that almost died from a vaccine. You can understand why someone would be hesitant, right? Two people out of? Out of the people that I know. Two people out of the people you know died from a vaccine? No, no, no, no, no. Oh.

I said had an adverse reaction. Okay. Did I say died? I didn't say died, did vaccine? No, no, no, no, no. Oh. I said had an adverse reaction. Okay. Did I say died? I didn't say died, did I? I don't think I said died. Okay. I said- Had adverse reactions.

Very bad reactions. Like I said, one of them had a stroke. The other one had a heart attack and two strokes. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. You know, this kind of reminds me of the air conditioning person I talked to where, you know, there was a real concern that he had about clotting. Yeah. And that's probably if you talk about heart attacks and strokes, clotting is sometimes the root cause of that. And again, I'm aware like this is very, very, very rare when you're dealing with hundreds of millions of people

that are vaccinated. I'm aware this is very, very rare. Yeah. So so I just you know, I know, again, you're not saying don't get vaccinated. You're, you're recommending people do that. Especially recommending it to older people like my parents. I didn't try to convince them not to do it at all. I convinced them to do it. I mean, or encourage them to do it. I encouraged some of my overweight friends to get vaccinated. I'm not an anti, the problem is is also it's not a traditional vaccine right it's more of a gene therapy than it is

like an you know an inert virus that you've inserted into people right it's a different sort of virus I mean different sort of vaccine

yeah mRNA vaccine so the term is weird that's an mRNA well the term vaccine is weird because it's

really a therapeutic because it's only got a certain amount of lifespan. If you need a booster after a year or whatever it is. But that is not unusual for all vaccines to get a booster. But it's only the flu vaccine that's similar. The flu vaccine is a yearly sort of thing. But if you look at things like hepatitis or you look at other vaccines, you get boosters of some of these things. Tetanus. They get hepatitis boosters every year? Not every year. No, I'm saying a booster. We may not need boosters of some of these things tetanus you know they get hepatitis boosters every year not every year no i'm saying a booster i'm not saying we may not need boosters

every year for this how often do people get hepatitis boosters i'm just saying they may get one booster like you get a you get a prime and then a boost when do you get the boost i can't remember but then you're good for the rest of your life right so that's different than this well we don't know i mean we don't know. I mean, we don't know. We're not sure that we're going to need to get boosters every year. I mean, if the people get boosts, like I'm saying, and this gets back to even with me, I got a prime and then I got a second shot three weeks later. I think we should have centers where people can go to catch COVID after they've been vaccinated.

So you have like the ultimate control. I feel like this conversation, somehow you're trying to convince me of something and I'm trying to convince you of something. I'm telling you to get COVID and you're telling me to get vaccinated. So look, if I get COVID and I call you up and I say, Joe. Then I have to get vaccinated? Yes. Fuck off. Come on.

I have better immunity than you. You got COVID. You don't know. I guarantee you I do. I got fat lines. You want to measure lines? I saw yours. These are bitch ass lines. They're pretty good, huh? Yours are barely visible. You got COVID. You don't know. I guarantee you I do. I got fat lines. You want to measure lines? I saw yours. These are bitch ass lines. They're pretty good, huh? Yours are barely visible. From a vaccine. What?

Barely visible. I thought you meant they were really strong. No. Jamie's are strong. Jamie's like fucking fat Sharpies. These places are recommending that natural immunity. They say, as you said, and I asked the question about natural immunity, it can be very protective. We don't know how long those antibodies last.

Right. Yep. In other cases like SARS, you know, immunity lasted a long time. There was a study out of Kentucky showing people who had had natural immunity, their reinfection rates versus people who had natural immunity plus the vaccine. And they found that the reinfection rates were twice as high in those who just had the natural immunity. The natural immunity people, where they have been reinfected, what is the mortality rate? Is it zero? Because it's pretty close. I'm sure it's low. It's really close. It's certainly way, way, way lower than people who've been vaccinated.

People who have been vaccinated who die of COVID are rare, but they're numerous. The people who have died from reinfection to COVID is very low, isn't it? You might be right. I don't know the numbers of that off the top of my head. I just know the reinfection rates. And it does bring up this question of- Who? That's what it brings up. Yeah, it brings up the question. What do they look like? Well, also-

Are they fat? Also, should we treat all brain- Right? We got kind of fixated on that. Oh, it's a good thing to get fixated on. We're going to fix that problem. It's a real problem. We should fix it.

What? You say we can't fix it. I think we can. No, I pro we should fix what you say we can't I know I think we should look It's this is coming from a person who used to teach martial arts for a living It's very difficult to motivate people very very very hard to motivate people, you know This is this is a really interesting thing about you I think most people who are listening to podcast know this but I did not know this about you. You were the taekwondo champ

State champ in Massachusettsachusetts yeah massachusetts right yeah 21 years old well i won four years in a row from yeah and and and then you left because you're worried about uh concussions yes i started having real fear about brain there was more kickboxing i started kickboxing after i uh did taekwondo or during and then after. The last three fights that I had were kickboxing fights. And I was aware that, first of all, I was suffering some issues, like really bad headaches. But also I was aware that people around me that I had known had been fighting for years were starting to slur their words and were starting to exhibit slur their words and we're starting to exhibit diminished behavior, like diminished cognitive function clearly.

Like there was something about it. And then, you know, that term punch drunk has always been around, but we really didn't understand CTE until, you know, the early 2000s. And then the concussion movie and then, you know, people started doing examinations and all these different studies of people post-mortem. We have an understanding about brain damage now that we didn't have when I was a child. Right. But I was aware that I was doing damage to myself. I mean, so your risk assessment at a pretty young age was, I mean, you evaluated that, made a decision.

Yeah. It sounds like it was a smart decision. I mean, you were at risk. Who knows how high your risk would have been for having a real problem, but it was enough of a concern for you. Well, I'm also very fortunate that there was no real professional avenue when I was young, right? Do you think you would have stuck with it otherwise? It's hard to say. It's hard to say, because I remember reading recently about this 24-year-old football player in the NFL who was really promising and doing really well. San Francisco.

Yeah. You know the guy? I know the story, yeah. And he was like, I'm done. Yeah. And they were like, what? But he realized, like, hey, I have a whole life. I probably have another 70 fucking years of life.

I am not going to do it drooling on myself. 70 fucking years of life. I am not going to do it drooling on myself. I'm not going to do it. Uh, having these, uh, you know, there's CTE, it can play. It's, it's so strange, right? Because the APOE for the, whatever that, uh, the, the issue that some people have versus some people don't, where it leads you to be more susceptible to CTE and various issues that people have from repeated head trauma. They don't know. You don't know if it's going to affect you like it affects some people. I know fighters that have been fighting for 10, 15 years and hardcore and they're fine. See, this is exactly how I feel about this whole issue with the pandemic. You just contextualized it for me. I don't know. I think I'm going to be fine. Could I have a problem? I mean, you're pinning me down on this, right? You want me to get a third

vaccine. I don't want you to get a third vaccine. I want you to get COVID. No, you don't. I don't want you to get the vaccine. I want you to get COVID. Yeah. No, you don't. You don't. I think you'd be fine. Well, listen, listen, we know about monoclonal antibodies. Yeah. And I really firmly believe that if you were sick and you got monoclonal antibodies, you'd be fine. Yeah. I think the monoclonal antibodies work really well. They work really well. Trust me. I still don't want COVID though. You'd be fine. I think you'd be okay. You're younger than me. Come on. You look at you, you little kid. But just like you're saying about the concussions though. Like most of those guys would be fine. They didn't have a problem, right?

But you don't know. It's not most of those guys. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's the opposite. It's not most of those guys. You think most of them have problems? Yes, most. Yeah, most.

Most of the martial arts guys? It's a great, it's the opposite equation. Yeah, it's not. Is it that prevalent? Yes, Yes. It is my main moral dilemma about being involved in martial arts and commentating. And it's not that I don't respect the decision of the athletes to pursue a dangerous but ultimately insanely rewarding lifestyle choice and career choice. It's not that.

And I understand that the glory that these people receive, the highs that they achieve are impossible for mere mortals like myself to comprehend. That is a fact. When you're dealing with Israel Adesanya, when you're dealing with Conor McGregor, when you're dealing with Dustin Poirier, when you're dealing with Conor McGregor, when you're dealing with Dustin Poirier, when you're dealing with the elite of the elite, what they experience upon victory is probably, most of us will probably never understand it. Probably never understand it. But it is my personal belief that most of them stay too long, most of them take too much damage,

most of them will suffer. Most of them take too much damage. Most of them will suffer. Most of them. I mean, some people have likened some of these sports like football, where you're taking a lot of blows to the head, like the Coliseum days where people were fighting. Well, those were slaves. I mean, there's a real difference. Like the Coliseum days, those people were forced into combat. Yeah, they're forced into combat. Although, you know, some people, if this is their life, this is their source of revenue, you know, I mean... Yeah, but it's a choice.

You know, there's a very big difference between locked in a cage and then given a sword like fucking Russell Crowe and being forced out into the... I mean, like, I don't think they're valid comparisons. Okay, all right, fair enough. Not a valid comparison in terms of that, like the servitude part of it, but the idea that you're putting yourself at real risk in order to

entertain others. You can choose not to, but this is why I draw the distinction. I feel like there's a great danger in a lot of things that we celebrate, whether it's BMX riding, people who do skateboarding and do a lot of fucking jumps and flips and fall and hit their head. People get concussions from soccer. There's a lot of CTE from soccer. I don't know if you're aware of that. There's a lot of things that people do where there are long-term consequences for short-term gains. So for a lot of fighters, they have to figure out how to navigate those waters with just mitigating the amount of damage that they get. I think if when I look at fighters overall in general, one of my favorite examples of someone who's done a fantastic job of mitigating risk is Floyd Mayweather. And the reason why

he's been so good at it is because first of all, he's very intelligent and he recognized early on that defense is of primary concern. It's the most important thing. Defense is the most important. Floyd Mayweather is probably the least hit boxer in the history of boxing. It's incredible how good his defense is. And because of that, he's managed to get to, I mean, he's in his 40s now. And when you hear him talk, there's no evidence of decline.

He's fine and he still maintains his physical ability. He's doing these kind of freak show boxing matches now, but he's just doing that because he can make enormous amounts of money with relative low risk. In my opinion, he's the smartest boxer of all time because he's managed to take fights where he's almost guaranteed victory and make hundreds of millions of dollars doing so. It's kind of crazy. Yeah.

And if you go over his career with a fine tooth comb, he's really only been hit hard like three or four times. He's so good defensively, which is, but not everybody is. Right. So you're entering into the same sort of sport. Some people, their approach is to just go full blast and clash into each other and hope that they survive and that the other person falls floyd mayweather's approach is like some four-dimensional chess game with like you know he's just got far more comprehensive

understanding of movement and boxing and like what what happens when you do this and then I do that and then what's your natural? Response after that he's two three four five six steps ahead of the average boxer, but it's because of work It's because of thinking it's because of having his you know His uncle was Roger Mayweather and his father was Floyd Mayweather the guy who fought Sugar Ray Leonard Back when I was in his prime as father was Floyd Mayweather, the guy who fought Sugar Ray Leonard back when Leonard was in his prime. Yeah, his father was an amazing boxer. So because of that, he's got this lineage and he's got this, you know,

he's a part of like an incredible boxing lineage. But not everybody's Floyd Mayweather. Right. In fact, there's only one. There is only one. Ever. Well, two it sounds like. Well, his dad.

But I mean, he's 50 and 0. 50 victories no defeats and literally never been really in trouble in a fight well i i mean that that it's it's really interesting to hear how people mitigate their risk you know like you're saying he does he's focused on defense and things like that i don't know if that's if he's consciously thinking about for sure but i you know it just comes back to, for me, with, with you even, like, you've thought about risk in your own life with the Taekwondo. You've, you've thought about like whether or not that was the right thing for you. And I think for, for everyone who's navigating their way through this pandemic, it's sort of the, the same thing,

right? The difference I think is the collective on this. Like how, what is our obligation to the larger group in terms of reducing the spread of this virus? is our obligation to the larger group in terms of reducing the spread of this virus? That's what it, I mean, it's part of the reason I've wanted to come talk to you and the reason I wrote this book was- What book did you write? World War C.

You didn't get a copy of it? No. What the fuck? I didn't even know you wrote a book. Oh my God. Do you have one on you? I don't have it. What kind of publicist are you working with? Oh my you did not get jamie didn't give you a book world

war c no we didn't get a book do you have a picture of it there it is there it is look at you handsome so there it is world war c covid 19 pandemic and how to prepare for the next one but honestly why would you think that i i should get vaccinated on top of having natural immunity from overcoming COVID? I think your protection is really good right now. How good is my protection right now without it? Without the vaccine? Yeah. I think, you know, it's like you said, I mean, if you look at the Israel data, you know, it's maybe six to 16. There was one study that said even up to 23 times better in terms of neutralizing antibodies. I think we don't know how long it lasts. That's

the only thing. I mean, you're going to keep checking your antibodies, and so you'll probably know, and Jamie will know. So maybe you're a little different. If Jamie gets it again, I'll spit in his mouth. What? We've decided. I've wanted to find out how long it'll last. That's why I've been testing it ever since I got it. That's an old Damon Wayans joke. We've been waiting to see if it would ever go away, and it hasn't ever gone away.

It's just showed up every single time. So most people don't have access to it. They should in terms of the testing. I understand that we're very privileged in that regard. That Kentucky study worried me because more people got reinfected. In Kentucky. What are they doing down there? They're eating chicken, drinking booze.

Yeah. Bourbon. There's a lot of fat people in Kentucky. No disrespect. No disrespect to Cheetos or Mountain Dew either. But let's be honest. Some of your friends who've gotten this. I've got fat friends. Some of my favorite people are fat.

And some of your healthier ones have gotten it, right? They got COVID too. Couple of them, yeah. They've all been fine, unfortunately. You don't wish them well. No, but the people, the higher reinfection rates among those who did not get a second.

I've only had one friend that's been reinfected post-COVID infection. One friend. And he's very overweight. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, if you start to look at the specific numbers, you know, the Kentucky study just showed you had a higher rate of reinfection if you were not, if you just had the natural immunity and you didn't get vaccinated. So if you wanted to say, hey, look, I want to be done with this, there's a good chance between a prime, which was your COVID infection in this case, and then a boost, which would

be the vaccine, that you'd probably have really long lasting protection. Can I say that 100%? No. But I'm basing that on just the data from other vaccines and looking at what's happening with these antibodies overall. I mean, I've had four, five friends who got COVID and then got vaccinated after they got COVID. One of them had a severe reaction to the first Moderna shot and did not get a second. That's the one that I was talking about, about fluid built up in his body. And he's an elite athlete, by the way.

Right. And he had a severe reaction. He was bedridden for, I think it was 11 days. He put videos up on his Instagram of, it's disturbing to see the fluid built up in his body. It was like his lymph nodes were, it was overrunning one side of his body. So that's, you know, out of six people, five, six people that got COVID and then got vaccinated,

one had a severe reaction. Do you think that's a real problem, though? I think it is. Generally speaking? It's more likely to have a severe— There's a study that showed that people who have had COVID and recovered and then got vaccinated are more likely to have a bad reaction or a more severe reaction from the vaccine than people who have not had COVID and got vaccinated. I heard that about the second shot. It's like people got two shots after the thing. And I think that's why some of these countries

started going to saying, hey, look, you've been primed already because you had it. So now we'll give you the boost because that'll probably give you a longer lasting protection. But my friend Craig, who had a bad reaction, one shot. One shot of Moderna. But the thing is, if I got one shot, I still wouldn't be considered vaccinated. So all of the perks of being vaccinated, like to be able to go to New York City and that may need to change That may change that may need to change. I'm with you on that You know that's that's why I asked the Fauci as you know about the question about natural immunity

It's not clear at this time. You're giving him the Australian accent. There's no evidence What did you think doesn't speak like that though? Yeah, he does. No. I can do a Fauci impression if you give me some time. What did you think about the connection between Fauci and the EcoHealth Alliance and the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute? Because that's very disturbing. I mean, it is, I think it's concerning that we don't know the origins of this virus still. I think it's concerning that they were, you know, they were obviously doing all kinds of research on bat coronaviruses in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I talked to Ralph Baric, who is the, he's sort of the gain of function guy. He's here in the States at UNC, but he's the one who spent some time in Wuhan, knows Dr. Shi, you know, who's called the bat lady. And so it's concerning. You know, what concerns me the most,

Joe, I think just statistically, you know, most pathogens like this have been natural spread over events from animals to humans. That's how, you know, SARS started that way. A lot of flu viruses start that way. And that's what I would have believed here as well. What has been so suspicious is that they just won't, there's no investigation into, they say that they investigated, but they didn't investigate the lab leak theory. There was workers who got sick at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There may have even been a relative of one of those workers who died. When a spouse died. Yeah, I mean, there was. And the blood samples of them, to show whether or not they have antibodies, that would be a very good thing to know. Those blood samples were not released to the WHO.

They didn't allow people into the lab. So, like, if you were to say to me, hey, just de novo, before I knew any of that, how do you think this thing started? I would have said it probably started from animals to humans because that's how they usually start. But why is there such cover-up? And they were buying PPE, including from the United States, in the fall of 2019. There was a study that just came out that said they were likely buying reagents for PCR testing in the summer of 2019 maybe that was for something else. We don't know we just don't know so it's it's and and China has not been very Transparent even going back to the days of SARS, you know

They waited a long time before they actually alerted the world on this so it's it's it's concerning Did you read the email leaks do the emails from Peter Batzik? And yeah, all the different discussions that they had about their concerns that they were responsible for this through gain-of-function research. They applied for a grant to specifically do a, to insert a furin cleavage site, which is that particular part of the virus that raised so much concern. Yeah. I mean, look, the thing is like this gets back to the same thing I think we're dancing around a little bit,

which is I don't know sometimes what to do with this. It's highly suspicious. I think of this sometimes the way I think about my teenage kids. They're not telling me everything here. Now, do I automatically assume they're totally guilty of everything I think they're guilty of? Or is there something else going on here? You know, I think China has not. Part of being prepared in my World War C book is that we have to have a world health organization that's actually empowered to be able to do things. that's actually empowered to be able to do things it's just it's to beholden I think to China and and there was a letter that came out from Peter Daszak in February of last year that he wrote in The Lancet along with a bunch of other people saying this thing you know this is ridiculous to suggest that this had somehow been bioengineered at a lab you know while the internal emails suggested that he had very different concern. That's worrisome.

And I said, Peter, this is not making sense. And what did he say? He said, hey, there's no evidence that the virus ever existed in this lab. There's no evidence that it leaked out of the lab. Well, that's because they destroyed a lot of evidence. This is concerning. They deleted how much evidence did they delete in 2019? Some stunning amount.

Well, the entire database went down. Yeah, exactly. Now, I said to him, you were a part of the WHO investigation. Did you see the database now? It's been over a year later. He said, no. When I said, is that not of concern to you? He said, look, he goes, it was a public database.

They were worried about hacking, and so that's why they took it down. I said, if it was a public database, why were they worried about hacking? You know, what were they, what were they trying to hide? You know? So I don't, I don't know, Joe, what to make of it. It's the, the, the, there's clearly, as you said earlier, I think you said, where there's smoke, there's fire probably. But can I say conclusively? No. And, And part of me thinks we may never know. We don't have a system in place at a sort of global level to mandate that these things actually come to light. Yeah. We don't treat this like we treat Department of Defense issues. We don't treat, you know, we should be thinking about this more from a defense standpoint rather than a public health preventive standpoint.

That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. rather than a public health preventive standpoint. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. When you see Fauci being grilled by Rand Paul and he denies that they were doing gain-of-function research, what are your thoughts on that? Because by any definition, that was gain-of-function research, right?

Gain-of-function research is taking a virus. We should probably Google the exact definition, but what my impression is that gain of function means you're imparting new ability to this virus to infect humans. The idea is that you're juicing it up and making it more contagious. That's right. And that type of research has been done. And in fact, I think it was done in 2015, I think, in the Netherlands somewhere. But if the NIH was giving funding to EcoHealth Alliance and EcoHealth Alliance was funding that kind of research, and then Fauci is not being honest about that.

I think the NIH is clearly funding EcoHealth Alliance and EcoHealth Alliance is clearly giving grants to Wuhan Institute of Virology. Here's how they answer the question when I asked them, including Francis Collins, who's the head of the NIH. They define gain-of-function research as this. You have a known bad contagious pathogen and you're going to essentially do it, you know, use the backbone of another known bad pathogen and and you're going to splice them together, essentially. You're taking one thing that you know to be bad and contagious and splicing it with something else that you know to be bad. You're expecting this to be worse than what you started with. If you're taking a novel virus and you don't know how contagious this is, and you're basically saying, look, I want to isolate the spike protein on this new virus. I'm going to put it on the backbone of something I do know.

And make it contagious to humans. We'll see how it behaves at that point. Does this actually start to behave as something super contagious or not? The possibility is that it could, but they're not sure. So this is nuanced and a lot of people have taken issue with it, including scientists who work in the field. But the strict definition is that you've got to know for gain of function research, you know that it's going to lead to gain of function. So maybe the problem is using the term gain of function. Yeah. If we instead abandon any sort of nomenclature that might be problematic and say, were they doing experiments to make viruses

more contagious to people? The answer would be yes. Yeah. Were they doing experiments that could lead to viruses being more contagious? Yes. I think that that's right. That is research that is done to try and figure out. I mean, a lot of these pathogens they examine, they're not contagious. They put the spike protein or they put some component of the virus onto the backbone of a known thing, and it doesn't do much. So they say, we don't have to worry about this. But it could turn into a situation where you take a component of a new virus, you put it on the backbone of a known virus, and it does lead to something much more contagious. And that's what a lot of people are concerned about here. contagious. And that's what a lot of people are concerned about here. I mean, you know, there was part of those emails, as you know, Joe, were emails that were sent to Fauci in January of last year,

where Christian Anderson raised this concern. He subsequently wrote a paper saying, hey, those changes that we saw, I thought that was clear evidence of bioengineering. But now I've seen evidence of those same abnormalities in existing naturally occurring viruses. So now I've seen evidence of those same abnormalities in existing naturally occurring viruses. So now I don't think that's the problem. But it's just, it's going back and forth. And, you know, frankly, we may never know for sure. It's really complicated. And the problem is for someone like myself who doesn't have any education in the matter, I'm reading these analysis back and forth and back and forth and trying to figure out what's what. But I don't like the way Fauci responded when he was asked by Rand Paul. Well, it made me very concerned.

It's so freaking antagonistic. It's just so antagonistic. I mean, you know, it made me uncomfortable, too. And, you know, Rand Paul's really grilling him. I mean, this gets back a little bit to how you started this whole conversation with Jen Psaki. Yeah. What's the goal here? Well, yeah, in that kind of conversation,

I feel like doing it from a far distance, they're both at these tables, Fauci's over here, Rand Paul's over here. What I would like to see is Fauci and Rand Paul on a podcast. Yeah. Just the two of them. Yeah. I mean, I would be a moderator. I would sit on the side and just ask him questions.

I like that. I would love to do that. I think, you know, I've heard you talk about Fauci. You have feelings about him. I do? What are my feelings? You don't like him. It's not that I don't like him.

I think he likes a lot of attention. I think he likes a lot of attention and I think that's a real problem for someone who is in a position where he's essentially directing public health I think he enjoys being in the spotlight which a lot of people do it's a natural human inclination

but I think but that's not why you don't like him it's an issue for scientists why don't I like him tell me I don't know I mean you think he's being I think he's being deceptive I think you think he's not being honest with these things. I think you think that too. I don't know. I think that, you know, the gain of function thing, like, let's put it this way. He wasn't surprised by that question, right? It's not like, holy shit,

when you saw his emails, did you get concerned that he possibly knew that they were maybe responsible? That's a good question. That hesitation alone. That hesitation alone. Well, if I asked you, do you think Jamie's responsible for the pandemic? Yes, definitely. No hesitation. Let's see what I'm saying. No, but here's why I'm on this podcast, because we can have a nuanced conversation about this. Yeah, I think that when you're doing bad coronavirus research and you suddenly hear about a coronavirus that's spreading around the world. From the same exact area. You've got to be concerned. You saw the Jon Stewart bit?

He went crazy on it. I love Jon Stewart. I mean. That was amazing. That surprised me a little bit, because he's usually, you know, he's a comedian, but he's usually kind of modulated here. Well, Jon Stewart, a lot of people forget, when he was on The Daily Show, was honest and balanced.

He's very left-wing leaning, as am I, but he is very honest. I didn't know you were left-wing leaning. I'm 100% left-wing. I thought you were a libertarian. I get labeled that way because of my position on guns and some other things, but I'm very pro-choice. I'm very women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, trans rights. I'm very – I'm even universal health care. I saw that.

Universal basic income. very, I'm even universal healthcare, universal basic income. I think we're going to come to a point in time where I think Andrew Yang has some really good points about automation and elimination of jobs. And I also think that we should take into consideration like where do our tax dollars go? And if people just had their basic needs met, would that give them more of an opportunity to pursue innovation and creativity and other goals? Or would that, with a negative perspective, would that encourage people to be lazy? I mean, I think it's something to be considered, like whether or not people who are ambitious would always be ambitious. I don't know.

I think there's a certain amount of discussion to be had about all these topics, but my parents were hippies I grew up in I mean I lived in San Francisco from age 7 to 11 during the Vietnam War in the hippies Where I mean, that's like a formative period of my youth and I'm always going to be open to anyone's choices I want people to live their life as genuinely and authentically as they feel represents who they really are. That's why I'm left-leaning. And that's why I've never voted for a Republican ever. I feel like one of the things that gets lost on the left is law and order and then the importance of discipline and encouraging discipline and and and encouraging hard work and rewarding hard work and commending people for that and this victim mentality drives me fucking crazy that's what

drives me crazy about the left this idea of like weaponizing victimhood and making it so that people are excited about the fact that they have certain things that are holding them back. I just think that's not empowering in any way, shape or form. And that's one of the main issues I have with the left. Yeah. I mean, we live in a very capitalistic country and we obviously have these divisions within the country, but still, you know, for a country that very capitalistic country. And we obviously have these divisions within the country. But still, you know, for a country that's 4% of the world's population, it is generally what you're describing, aren't you? I mean, in terms of there's a capitalist country. We do have federal entitlements and social programs.

And it sounds like you agree with those things. I think they should be expanded. But, I mean, people may say, well, that's going to buy into the victim mentality. No, no, no. What I mean by expanded is education. I think the idea that children should be saddled down with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt right out of high school is crazy. Yeah.

And I think their brains aren't even formed yet. And you're saddling them down, not just with student loan debt, but debt that you cannot escape even through bankruptcy. It's the only debt that we have currently available that you can't escape through bankruptcy. If you start a business and your business fails, you're not responsible if you go bankrupt. If you're 17 years old, you get out of high school and you get a student loan, you're responsible for that shit until you die. In fact, there are people today in this country that are getting Social Security docked because they owe student loans. I didn't know that.

Yeah, it's madness. That's why I was in favor of Bernie Sanders. Yeah, I saw that. I mean, you're a paradox in some ways, but I feel like I'm better understanding you now a few hours into all this. I'm not a paradox. Well, I'm just saying. I'm just who I am. I knew what I knew of you, you know, and listened to your podcast.

From CNN, because they're fucking lying. I feel like I keep walking into this frigging trap. No, I listened to your podcast. By the way, can I just tell you one more? Yes. Because I know you probably have to go. We're probably wrapping up soon. Is that how long?

We've been three hours in, right? Awesome. Three hours in, Jamie? So I just want to read you something about this myocarditis. Three hours went by pretty quick, right? I'm amazed, actually. Although, yeah, I think you gave me the whiskey at like two hours. You gave me the whiskey!

I know, but I wouldn't give it during the podcast. All right, look. Here's what I have on the myocarditis thing. And I'm going to look into that study. Baseline rate of myocarditis. No pandemic, okay? Just in general. What was going on? 1500 out of a million. This is 16 to 24 year olds. Okay. With COVID-19, uh, it went to just, just people who had the disease. It added about 200 more cases per million. Okay. And then if you, if you talk about the vaccine for the first shot,

it added about another case per million. And the second shot added around 5.8, around six cases per million. So really the comparison is the disease versus the vaccine. And this is what has been reported to the VAERS. This was CDC data. I mean, you know, I- And we do know that there's some under- Some of this comes from the hospital. Yeah, I'm sure. Under-reporting and perhaps even over-reporting.

There could be. You're right about that. This is what they came up with. So this is not absolute data. It's not absolute data. This is not like we know the mass of the sun, right? True. The certainty or the speed of light.

What is certain in life? Speed of light. I don't know. Listen, this is one of the things that I like about this podcast. You and I came into this podcast not totally knowing each other, not knowing exactly what to expect and wondering how much adversity and how much antagonistic conversation would take place, and very little. I felt like it was going to be more.

Did you? Yeah, I just felt like, you know, Joe Rogan's a brawler. He's going to go. I very little. I felt like it was going to be more. Did you? Yeah, I just felt like, you know, Joe Rogan's a brawler. He's going to go. I'm not. I'm not. I'm a lover. I'm a nice guy. No, I thought it was.

I just look like a douchebag. I am glad that I convinced you to get vaccinated. That was my goal. I convinced you to get COVID. That's my goal. We're going to go to a bar on 6th Street tonight. I'm going to get you hammered, and you're going to get vaccinated by COVID itself. Oh my God.

I just, I I'm glad we have the conversation. I'm glad that people Let's do it again. And if there's any concerns that you have that you feel like things are being misrepresented or misinformation is being distributed, I am very open to discussing things.

I'm not dogmatic. I have my questions and I'm willing to push back against things, but I'm open to being wrong. And I'm very open to talking to people, especially a person like yourself that is very knowledgeable and a really nice guy. Well, I appreciate you. I feel the same way. And I, you know, it's okay for people to not always agree on things. Yes. But I respect you and I like how you think.

I respect you as well and I like how you think too. Cheers, sir. Thanks, buddy. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for being here, man. You got it. Anytime.

Have me back. Let's do it again. I wrote a book. You know, I can't even believe it. I can't believe these motherfuckers didn't send your book. All right. Sanjay Gupta, ladies and gentlemen. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Goodbye.