Joe Rogan Defends Taking Ivermectin for COVID-19 in Scathing Rant

Joe Rogan hit back at the mainstream media outlets for "mocking" him about taking ivermectin after testing positive for COVID-19. The comedian spoke at length on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, responding to the likes of CNN and MSNBC which he claims tried to "shame him" for taking alternative medications rather than getting vaccinated against COVID. Rogan contracted COVID on September 1, 2021, and posted a video listing all of the medications he was talking, which included the drug ivermectin. This came days after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had urged people to stop using the medication to treat or prevent COVID. Ivermectin is an World Health Organization-approved drug usually taken to treat parasitic infestations, though it is also used as a "dewormer" in livestock. This led to the FDA tweeting in August 2021, "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it."

Despite the advice, Rogan took ivermectin to treat his COVID alongside monoclonal antibodies, prednisone, azithromycin, a NAD drip and a vitamin drip. He told his followers that after three days of treatment, he felt "great." His comments were criticized at the time by multiple sources, and CNN branded the medication invermectin as "horse dewormer," though the channel's Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta later told Rogan on his podcast that CNN "shouldn't have said that" as it could have been deemed defamatory. Almost two years after the uproar, Rogan addressed the incident on his podcast with his guest, Dr. Aseem Malhotra. "What disturbs...me is that after I got better, CNN, MSNBC, all these mainstream news things are mocking me for taking horse medication. They're saying 'he took horse medication. He took horse dewormer,'" Rogan said. "Literally taking a drug that's on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines. Literally taking a drug that's been prescribed billions of times. Taking a drug that was invented by the guy who won the Nobel Prize for inventing that drug. It has one of the best safety profiles of any known drug," he said. "But it's generic, and it's cheap. It's real cheap. And I didn't just take that. I listed a bunch of other things." "I got better quick. Nobody cared that I got better quick. All they cared was I didn't get vaccinated. 'What's the best way to shame him?' 'Let's point to this one thing that he took and mock this person for taking this foolish medication.' They even changed the color of my face on CNN." The color change of his face is an unverified theory shared online by many, suggesting that CNN doctored the original footage Rogan posted in an attempt to make him look more ill as he discussed the alternative medication he took. The popular Twitter user Dschlopes, who calls himself an "exposer of lies and corruption" on his Telegram channel, shared a graphic comparing Rogan's post with CNN's coverage. The theory suggests media reports added a "yellow filter and blur" to make Rogan look "sick." During his rant, Rogan also pointed the finger at Rolling Stone for publishing an article which he said suggested "gunshot victims are waiting in line to get to hospital because so many people are overdosing on horse dewormer." He said the article was then retweeted by Rachel Maddow and many other journalists. Rolling Stone later published another story where one hospital denied an Oklahoma doctor's story that ivermectin overdoses were "causing ER delays for gunshot victims" Newsweek reached out to CNN and Rolling Stone for comment. Rogan went on to cite the book The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in which Rogan says he realized his public shaming may have been a "playbook" by pharmaceutical companies where anything that is cheaper than their "one solution" is dismissed.

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"My whole journey on this is like, first of all, how did I find myself in this? I'm a comedian, and a cage fighting commentator. How am I on CNN all the time? And all they're doing is mocking a medication that I took," he said. "Very deceptively—no. Out and out lying, not just deceptively, just out and out lying, saying that I took veterinary medicine. "It was so strange to be in the center of that. And also to be someone who got over it very quickly, where there was no discussion of like, 'Hey, Joe Rogan got over this really quickly. What is he doing differently than most people that had COVID and had terrible outcomes?' There was none of that...It was just mockery and shame." Rogan's podcasts are regularly listened to by millions of people per month on Spotify, with millions of others listening to clips posted onto YouTube. Rogan's latest take on the situation was shared on Twitter by self-proclaimed "independent citizen journalist" KanekoaTheGreat. They explained the situation and Rogan's stance in great detail, getting another 2.8 million views, garnering thousands more likes, retweets and comments on the situation.