Joe Rogan Got Fact-Checked In Real Time Over COVID-19 Vaccines. Here's What His Producer Pulled Up
During a conversation on Wednesday with Australian broadcaster Josh Szeps about the COVID-19 vaccine, Joe Rogan was fact-checked over a claim regarding myocarditis. After Rogan expressed concern over inflammation of the heart muscle in young boys from the vaccine, Szeps pointed out that contracting COVID-19 put them at significantly higher risk of myocarditis.
"You know that there's an increased risk in myocarditis among that age cohort from getting COVID as well — which exceeds the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine," Szeps observed.
Rogan was surprised to hear that statistic.
"Well, let's look that up, because I don't think that's true," Rogan countered.
Rogan's producer Jamie pulled up an article from New Scientist titled "Myocarditis Is More Common After COVID-19 Infection Than Vaccination," which reported on a study published by Case Western Reserve University researchers who compared the risk of heart inflammation arising from mRNA vaccinations versus COVID-19 in teens.
A study in the US has analysed how often myocarditis occurs following infection with the coronavirus. Researchers analysed the records of healthcare organisations that cover a fifth of the US population. They found that, during the first 12 months of the pandemic, males aged 12 to 17 were most likely to develop myocarditis within three months of catching covid-19, at a rate of about 450 cases per million infections.
This compares with 67 cases of myocarditis per million males of the same age following their second dose of a Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, according to figures from the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
"Yeah, so you're about eight times likelier to get myocarditis from getting COVID than from getting the vaccine," Szeps summarized.
"That's interesting," Rogan replied, but continued to be incredulous. "What are we getting this from?"
Rogan later said he was glad Szeps was the one who made him "look dumb on the podcast."
Rogan also acknowledged the video was "cringey" and was "what happens when you stumble in a long form podcast when you didn't know a subject was going to come up and you wing it."
