Why Joe Rogan And Wellness Influencers Are Obsessed With Covid "Co-Morbidities"

The Wellness industry desperately wants you to know that if you die from Covid, it's your fault.

by Ben Cohen

In a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan took it upon himself to grill Dr. Rhonda Patrick (PhD) on her understanding of Covid-19 death and vaccine data. It was a somewhat bizarre encounter given Rogan’s non-existent scientific background and career as a media personality, but apparently he felt confident enough to go after Patrick, who is a highly respected cell biologist.

In today’s social media environment though, this has become somewhat of a norm. Opinionated media influencers, particularly in the ‘health and wellness’ space, are weighing in on topics they are not qualified to speak about. Rogan has made millions selling nutritional supplements and exercise equipment on his show and is well known for his advice on working out. This apparently makes him and others in the space go-to sources for information when a novel Coronavirus causes a global pandemic.

Health and wellness influencers appear to be extremely interested in going against the so-called “mainstream narrative” about Covid and vaccinations and are particularly obsessed with ‘Covid co-morbidities’ (having other chronic conditions present during a Covid infection).

Do health and wellness influencers have an ulterior motive here? It is a topic worth exploring given the stakes as Covid-19 continues racking up a terrifying death toll.

Confronting a disinformation merchant

Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a regular guest on Rogan’s podcast and was most likely attempting to counter some of the vaccine disinformation he has been putting out on his show.

Rogan has hosted discredited anti-vaxx extremist Alex Berenson and Ivermectin proponent Bret Weinstein on his show, falsely stated that mRNA vaccines are “gene therapy”, and recently told his young listeners he wouldn’t recommend they get the vaccine. To his credit, Rogan has walked back some of his statements and urged people not to take his advice. ““I’m not a doctor, I’m a fucking moron,” Rogan said on his podcast after he was widely criticized for telling young people not to get the vaccine. “I’m not a respected source of information, even for me.”

Yet Rogan has continued to promote misinformation on his show, wading into topics he admits he has no business talking about.

“It is something I have seen a lot of misinformation on….everywhere,” Patrick told Rogan in a somewhat uncomfortable moment on the podcast last week.

Perhaps sensing Rogan’s displeasure, Patrick pivoted quickly: “…on Facebook, on different news media outlets…I think really there are some main ones that I just feel are causing harm. There’s really eight of them.”

Patrick went on to list the major myths being promoted on outlets (like the Joe Rogan Podcast):

“I think the eight really are: Sars Cov2 is not that bad, Covid-19 is not that bad, and you know vaccines basically don’t prevent transmission, spike proteins from vaccines are cytotoxic therefore they are really bad, that vaccines are going to cause something called antibody dependent enhancement which is going to make you have a more severe disease. There’s the vaccines are going to cause infertility, there’s the vaccines are going to cause a more virulent strain or variant, and then there’s one more that there are alternatives to vaccines that exist and they are just as good.”

Patrick went on to comprehensively dismantle each of these arguments, much to Rogan’s apparent dismay.

Co-morbidities, co-morbidities, co-morbidities!

Two particular points of contention for Rogan were the “co-morbidity” factor in Covid deaths, and the extremely rare instances of adverse vaccine reactions in healthy people. Rogan, who again has no background in science or public health, continually badgered Patrick about it as she tried to educate his audience about the actual data.

“Do you think you would feel differently if you knew someone who had had a stroke or someone who has had heart attacks, perhaps young people?” Rogan asked Patrick when discussing extremely rare vaccine side effects.

Knowing people who have actually died from Covid appeared not to bother Rogan as much though:

“Most of them have four plus comorbidity factors, right? Isn’t that the average?” said Rogan when discussing Covid deaths.

After pulling up data from an unknown source, Rogan then read out the comorbidity factors related to Covid deaths. “So for only 5% of the Covid deaths, Covid-19 was the only cause mentioned. So out of those 600,000 people that died, only 5% just died from Covid-19,” he said.

When discussing the death toll by age group, Rogan again interjected in with the same point:

“For people with co-morbidities… because according to this, what we pulled up, it’s 5% that are dying just because of the Covid, 95% have an average of four co-morbidities”

Patrick seemed to struggle a little with this line of questioning, and for good reason given it has nothing to do with the dangers of Covid and the need to get vaccinated.

Patrick was definitive though on the dangers of Covid and the need to get the vaccine.

“You’re either going to get infected with SARS-COV-2, most people are eventually, and we’re all going to be exposed to it, so you’re either going to be vaccinated when you’re exposed to it or you’re not,” Patrick told Rogan “People are dying from heart attacks and blood clots, and even myocarditis, 100-fold times more than the vaccines.”

Patrick also made pains to explain to Rogan that while young people are extremely unlikely to die from Covid-19, the virus is still potentially extremely dangerous to them.

“No matter which way you look at it, it is worse to be exposed to the virus,” Patrick said. “How do you know that the person who had myocarditis wouldn’t have had it worse with Covid-19? It’s been shown to happen in young, healthy athletes.”

Patrick then told Rogan about a study showing the extreme adverse effects of Covid on a wide cross section of society — a study Rogan questioned because again, he wanted to know whether they accounted for “co-morbidities”.

It is unclear what Rogan’s point was during the segment, but he appeared to be implying that vaccines are dangerous, young people shouldn’t take them, and Covid-19 really isn’t a big deal unless you are unhealthy.

A profit motive?

Rogan’s obsession with “co-morbidities” is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, from a layman’s perspective, it is odd that anyone would want to keep talking about it. A lot of people in America (and the world) have underlying health conditions, so getting Covid would obviously be a factor. Pointing this out over and over again would be a bit like looking at the recent earthquake death toll in Haiti and saying “Yes, but they don’t have great building regulations so it isn’t such a big deal”.

It also seems particularly cruel to keep dismissing the danger of Covid because you happen to be fit and healthy. Rogan, it should be noted, hasn’t taken the vaccine despite the chances that he could give it to someone more vulnerable because he thinks that “if you maintain your health” you don’t need it.

Secondly, Rogan’s obsession begs the question: what might a media figure who part owns a supplements company, sells supplements and workout gear and makes vast amounts of money dispensing health advice to his estimated 11 million listeners gain from talking about Covid co-morbidities?

A clue lies in a conversation Rogan had with fellow comedian Bill Burr last year. When discussing what measure the public could take to slow down the spread of Covid, Rogan said this:

“Here’s what slows it down, your fucking immune system. They don’t tell you a goddamn thing about that. They don’t tell you how to take care of your immune system. There’s no word about that. It’s ‘Put a mask on! Wash your hands!’ No one is telling you to sleep more, drink water, take vitamins, there’s none of that.”

Given selling vitamins is Rogan’s business, it isn’t too much of a stretch to see how consciously or not, he has a vested interest in eschewing public health advice and setting himself up as an authority on how to survive a global pandemic.

Kevin Bass, a scientist who runs the Public Health Initiative for Health Misinformation Twitter account believes the motive of many wellness influencers like Rogan is entirely cynical.

“The case for “obesity is the real cause of COVID-19 deaths” is overstated because health influencers want to leverage it to build market share and clientele,” said Bass in a lengthy tweet thread.

““Obesity not COVID is the real problem” is a cynical, fake narrative motivated by greed.”

Citing multiple sources, Bass also quickly demolishes the notion that being obese significantly increases the chances of dying from Covid (it doesn’t), a theme many wellness figures have been playing up for their own gain.

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Twisting statistics

Regardless of Rogan’s motives, there is no doubt he is badly contorting statistics to create a narrative that has little to do with reality. Rogan’s claims about co-morbidities have been doing the rounds on the internet for some time now. Now deleted Facebook posts claiming that the CDC “admitted” that “only 6% of… (Covid-19-related) deaths recorded actually died from Covid” have been widely debunked. As Reuters Fact Check reports:

Dr. Maja Artandi ( here ), medical director of the Stanford CROWN Clinic for COVID-19 patients ( here ), told Reuters via email that the CDC’s numbers “are really not a big surprise,” as “patients who have a comorbidity such as diabetes, hypertension or obesity have a higher risk of getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19.” The numbers are also consistent with the fact that the novel coronavirus “can cause severe damage to the organs in the body such as the lungs, which then leads to respiratory failure and death.”

Key to understanding the issues in these posts is that, “If they had not gotten the infection,” Dr. Artandi said, “they would still be alive.”

It is possible that Rogan is being sincere in his line of questioning, and genuinely doesn’t understand the data or how to interpret it. Long time followers of his show know that Rogan is open minded, receptive of criticism, and willing to change his mind when presented with convincing arguments. But on the issue of Covid-19, he appears to be incapable of understanding the data despite having the opportunity to speak to real doctors like Rhonda Patrick who are willing to spell it out for him.

Unfortunately, the interaction with Patrick seems to confirm the more cynical theory that Rogan really doesn’t want to learn about it. Instead, he is far more interested in pushing a narrative that happens to feed into his highly lucrative business model.

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