“I’ve offered to come and talk to Joe Rogan again, and have that discussion with him, but not to turn it into the Jerry Springer with having RFK Jr. on.”
That’s Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, on MSNBC, explaining why he’s turned down a debate on Joe Rogan’s podcast with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s seeking the Democratic nomination for president and according to the RealClearPolitics average is polling at about 16% in national polls, behind President Joe Biden at 62%.
Rogan, whose popular show is on Spotify SPOT, +5.13%, said he’s offered Hotez $ 100,000 to any charity to debate RFK Jr., with Elon Musk adding on Twitter that maybe Hotez “just hates charity” to refuse to do.
RFK Jr., the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, for years has railed against vaccines, long before COVID. Hotez says RFK Jr.’s animus toward him stems from his book that explained that vaccines did not cause autism for his daughter Rachel.
Hotez says 200,000 Americans needlessly died from COVID-19 because of what he called “anti-vaccine” disinformation. He also defended against charges that he’s a pharma shill, pointing out that the no-patent COVID vaccine he co-developed, Corbevax, may have kept Pfizer PFE, +0.78% and Moderna MRNA, -0.96% out of India and Indonesia.
Last week, Kennedy said U.S. chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci assisted in a coup d’etat against western democracy and promoted ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as COVID treatments.
Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman waded into the discussion as well as he encouraged Hotez to debate. “I think knowledge will emerge from the discussion that will catalyze further explorations or investigations that will bring us closer to the truth and help us answer questions about vaccine efficacy and safety that remain unsettled for many,” said the CEO of Pershing Square over Twitter.