It has been three months since I have written one of these – I have had my own treacherous situations to deal with…
accounting for the delay. Over the past months, we have had major COVID-19-related events unfolding – the end of the “Delta” era and the decimation caused by the “Omicron” SARS-CoV-2 variant was the key feature. Most countries, including Australia, endured their most devastating phase of the pandemic due to Omicron despite relatively large proportions of the population being double and some triple vaxxed! It was a bad period, and appears to now be largely subsiding.
Today, given the three month we can re-initiate with a relatively easy topic; the Joe Rogan situation. Joe Rogan is colour commentator for the UFC, was the host of the Fear Factor, and most well-known for his very successful podcast the Joe Rogan Experience (JRE: >10 million tune in each month … or something like that … I think); basically many times more people than those that consume many programs on “normal TV”.
Anyway, the happening was driven by Neil Young who removed his music from Spotify apparently because Joe Rogan was spreading misinformation related to COVID-19 . Well, some sections of the mainstream and social media jumped in support of Neil Young’s action. Some other lady also removed her music and a few others threatened. In short, there was no real impact on Joe Rogan. He came out with a “good apology” and pretty much continued – business as usual.
People that listen to the JRE will now that the show is meant primarily for entertainment; a very broad range of Scientific topics are discussed with relevant experts BUT there is no way any one Scientific topic can be adequately covered in an episode of JRE – even though on average an episode lasts 2.5 hours; that’s not the purpose – it’s like a brief introduction and discussion to make it palatable for a broad audience. With respect to COVID-19, there has been some crap talk on the show but it has been balanced with “proper” experts, Profs Peter Hotez, Christakis, and Dr Gupta.
I have tried to get the exact recipe that Joe uses for COVID-19; I haven’t been able to – from listening my understanding is he proposes monoclonal antibody therapy as the primary “treatment”’; we know monoclonal antibodies work (at least up to the Delta variant). He also suggested the use of ivermectin, which still highly controversial – some professionals swear by it other not so… The other things are high doses of Vitamins C and D and NAD+; vitamin C and D megadoses are not the best and NAD+ is thought to be an anti-aging (sirtuin cofactor) agent. So, not the worst misinformation. Of course, for global protection the proper, cheaper and easier approach is vaccination; Joe provides some alternative and to be sure a disclaimer at the start of each show would be warranted, advising people to follow CDC advice.
In short, the “backlash against” Joe Rogan did not stick; the antagonists then tried the racist approach – Joe has incorrectly used a “banned” term on a few occasions and some video that has been circulating for years re-surfaced… it’s bad but most people, especially those that follow Joe in the UFC and his podcast, know the Joe Rogan is no racist.
That gave us a couple weeks of drama in the interim – as the Omicron wave was subsiding … to fill in the gap until this week’s invasion which has taken over the headlines. We’ll deal with the invasion at a later date … for now one-word … “Zelensky”!
Until next time …