Spotify’s Joe Rogan falsely says that children don’t need to get a coronavirus vaccine
Rogan: “They’re trying to say that children need it when they don't. They don’t need it.”
Written by Alex Paterson
Published
On the November 22 edition of his Spotify podcast, Joe Rogan falsely asserted that children do not need to get a COVID-19 vaccine, saying, “They’re trying to say that children need it when they don't. They don't need it.”
Rogan and his guest Tim Pool also fearmongered about rare instances of pharmacies incorrectly administering the wrong doses of COVID-19 vaccines to children, with Rogan suggesting, without evidence, that hundreds of kids were “fucked” and had “serious heart palpitations.” According to The Washington Post, a pharmacy “administered the shots to 112 children on Nov. 3 and 4, officials said, giving them vaccine formulas designed for older children or adults but in smaller amounts,” which is unauthorized. The Post also reported that “it’s unlikely a child would have been harmed by receiving too much of the vaccine, but it’s possible children were under-vaccinated if they received too little.” CNN reported on a separate case in which two kids received an adult dose of the vaccine instead of a flu vaccine and were being treated for elevated blood pressure and heartbeat.
Citation From the November 22, 2012, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience
JOE ROGAN (HOST): Just shows you that this is a for-profit endeavor. And the amount of profit that’s been generated by these pharmaceutical drug companies during this crisis from selling vaccines is fucking crazy, which is why it's terrifying that they’re now trying to give it to children.
TIM POOL (GUEST): Yeah.
ROGAN: And they’re trying to say that children need it when they don't. They don't need it. The children, they keep saying 700 children have died from COVID. The children that have died from COVID, without exception, any that I've read, almost all of them will say -- let's say that to be safe -- almost all of them had severe comorbidities. They were either, they had leukemia. They had cancer. There was something seriously wrong with them, and they died of COVID. They were amazingly obese. Whatever it was. It's not like a, it’s not a disease that is very dangerous for most healthy young kids. It's not.
POOL: Did you see that there is a big scandal where I think it was Walgreens and a few other pharmacies were giving hundreds of children adult sized doses?
ROGAN: Yes. Well these kids are fucked, you know? Because these kids have like serious heart palpitations now. It’s just --
POOL: It's really hard to know whats true, and it’s -- man, it’s, we're fucked. The media lies. We know they lie. They lie too much.
ROGAN: If they don't lie, they get things wrong, for sure.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone 5 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccine. As the agency noted:
There are approximately 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 years old in the United States, and there have been nearly 2 million cases of COVID-19 within this age group during the pandemic. COVID-19 can make children very sick and cause children to be hospitalized. In some situations, the complications from infection can lead to death.
Children are as likely to be infected with COVID-19 as adults and can
- Get very sick from COVID-19
- Have both short and long-term health complications from COVID-19
- Spread COVID-19 to others, including at home and school
As of mid-October 2021, children ages 5 through 11 years have experienced more than 8,300 COVID-19 related hospitalizations and nearly 100 deaths from COVID-19. In fact, COVID-19 ranks as one of the top 10 causes of death for children aged 5 through 11 years.