Thread by 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗵𝗮𝗺 𝗪𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗲𝗿, 𝗠𝗗

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I'm an ER doctor and Spotify subscriber. I listened to Rogan talk with Dr. Robert Malone for 3 hours to hear the controversy myself, and also watched Rogan's IG response.

Rogan says he's interested in "finding out what the truth is."

I'm not so sure. Long review/thread: 🧵⬇️
I love controversial opinions, and agree with Rogan: the COVID/vaccine messaging has changed over time (but so have the variants). I also agree that ideas that challenge the status quo are good for us. The problem is that he discusses them in a really irresponsible way.
If you don't want to doomscroll down, I'll summarize my main points about how misleading the interview is first, then timestamp the interview in-depth.

1️⃣Rogan and Malone discuss lots of vague theoretical vaccine risks, and spend NO time on ACTUAL risks, like COVID deaths.
2️⃣Malone uses his authority "as a doctor" when it suits him to be seen as an expert, yet has no medical authority: he doesn't see patients. Didn't even complete a residency. Yet Rogan accepts his medical credentials entirely.
3️⃣Rogan (who tends to lean a bit conspiratorial, like Malone) almost never questions Malone on some of his most ridiculous claims; it almost seems like a really weak interview from Rogan. He questions and critiques many other interviewees hard but lets RM's tall tales slide.
4️⃣Robert Malone (RM) mentions a ton of "modeling" and "theoretical" data as the basis for his claims, yet poo-poos pretty much all other data as "manipulated" and "misinterpreted." *His* data is high-quality; everything else is garbage.
5️⃣Joe Rogan (JR) and RM talk a lot about conspiracy theories that are entirely conflicting. Does Big Pharma want to get rich by giving vaccines and monoclonals to keep people out of the hospital? Or do hospitals want people to get COVID for money? Are doctors corrupt or reliable?
6️⃣Rogan wants "experts with differing opinions." Great! Joe, from what I can tell, you've had several medical experts on your podcast, but are any just frontline doctors? An ER doctor or hospitalist or cardiologist who's lived through this for the past 2 years? ...
An ICU nurse, or nursing home or rehab nurse? You've had highly published scientists and physicians and epidemiologists, but how about anyone who's actually worked this damn job caring for these patients with "mild" Omicron? I challenge you to invite some on your show.
7️⃣Finally, as I've said many times, it's much easier to believe that we ACTUALLY have a global pandemic with a FUNCTIONING vaccine with CHANGING science and variants... than it is that we have a GLOBAL conspiracy spanning the globe that everyone in healthcare has agreed to.
Okay, now onto the really long part where I critique Rogan and Malone. I'll timestamp with images and transcript. But first, let's talk about Malone.
No doubt Dr. Malone is an experienced scientist in the world of vaccines. His CV confirms that. Knows tons more than me for sure.
He speaks insightfully and intelligently about his work. I have no reason to doubt any of it. But just as Dr. Malone is experienced with vaccines and I know next to nothing about vaccine development... Dr. Malone knows next to nothing about clinical medicine except in theory.
JM is a researcher. Great. We need those. But as I said earlier, he doesn't see patients. First, his specialty is Pathology. This deals with cells under a microscope, lab tests, and cadavers. Pathologists arguably almost never see patients in an office, a clinic, or the hospital.
Second, JM did not complete his specialty training. According to his CV, he did an internship (the first year of training) but did not do a residency.

I have no doubt he's good at research. But that's not the same thing as being a doctor since 1991.

static1.squarespace.com/static/550b0ac4e4b0c16cdea1b084/t/58e5406b5016e1f1acacae75/1491419246742/RWM+...
This is not me defaming his experience, education, or scientific contributions. But it's the same reason your chemistry professor doesn't prescribe you antibiotics. While they know what the chemical does in the test tube, that's not the same thing as a human body.
You actually see this briefly throughout the Rogan interview; JR asks RM a clinical question (a question about patients) and RM either implies he knows the answer or essentially 'knows doctors who are telling him things.'

Robert Malone is a not a clinical expert on COVID.
Okay, onto the review. First, RM's famotidine (Pepcid) claims. Early in the pandemic, RM says he was researching how famotidine could work against COVID's viral proteins. Key point: how it COULD work. All theoretical. (And again: this is fine, science STARTS with theory!)
But it doesn't *end* with theory. Malone's paper a year into the pandemic is all theory, and shows ONE patient's sleeping better and reduction in chest pain due to famotidine. (Famotidine often improves chest pain... because it helps with heartburn.)

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.633680/full
But that's not all: there are multiple systematic reviews looking at *actual* studies of famotidine, one with 46,000 patients, another with 36,000 patients. They found no benefit to famotidine for COVID.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8568101/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33625613/
And yet RM still pushes famotidine, including how his consulting company is helping a clinical trial on famotidine+celecoxib for COVID. There's lots of talk about theoretical pharma conflict of interest by Rogan and Malone, but none about Malone's?

(I'm just asking questions)
Let's move onto hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Several common themes here from RM: more "modeling studies" that HCQ is effective and INCREDIBLE claims: half a million lives could have been saved! If we have 850,000 dead, and 500k could have been saved, HCQ must be VERY effective.
HCQ would be one of the most effective drugs we've ever seen — for any condition. Ever.

So when we study it, it must be incredible and the government has just been suppressing it, right?
Unfortunately, HCQ has little to no effect on COVID, and in one study, trends toward death.
Several reviews/studies: www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-2496
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8201261/
www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2980
Here's one from Brazil if you don't trust the US or UK:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34669839/
I'm not going to get into ivermectin, although Malone can't help but touch on it, especially in Uttar Pradesh, India. I've covered IVM many times, but no one has done it better than @GidMK.

gidmk.medium.com/ivermectin-didnt-save-uttar-pradesh-from-covid-19-17684f49d8b3
The only other thing I will say about ivermectin is because it's back in the news this week: This Japanese study showed a benefit in ivermectin/COVID Petri dishes. Not humans. LOTS OF THINGS KILL COVID IN PETRI DISHES.

www.newsweek.com/reuters-corrects-ivermectin-anti-viral-effect-omicron-covid-coronavirus-1674854
Here's a controversial idea that Rogan and Malone could have discussed: what if ivermectin seems like it works in developing countries like India, because it is an anti-parasite drug, and it kills worms that would otherwise harm the COVID+ patient?

www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/11/18/ivermectin-may-help-covid-19-patients-but-only-those-with...
I also noticed that when RM discusses spurious claims, he can never seem to cite his sources. Yet in other areas he knows the exact article where he read the fact. There is no evidence that prior COVID infection increases your risk of vaccine side effects. www.factcheck.org/2021/04/scicheck-vaccines-benefit-those-who-have-had-covid-19-contrary-to-viral-pos...
(You'll also note that Malone talks about Stage 3 hypertension, again referencing an out of date classification; there has not been "Stage 3 hypertension" since... 2003, when I started medical school.) www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sites/default/files/media/docs/jnc7full.pdf
Malone then talks about the power of natural immunity, which unfortunately is not turning out to be true. Unfortunately, even getting Delta variant does not protect you from Omicron. Vaccines are more effective than prior infection.
sciencebasedmedicine.org/natural-immunity-covid-19/
fortune.com/2022/01/27/omicron-cases-england-uk-reinfection-covid/
Next is about 20 minutes of conspiracy theory junk, including but not limited to:
•Biden's nurse didn't aspirate the syringe first meaning he didn't even really get a vaccine
•"Coordinated media warfare"
•The Great Barrington Declaration
•Back to IVM and HCQ
•VAERS
I'd like to take a moment to point out that it's now been an hour into the podcast, and despite RM talking as an expert physician, neither have discussed the tolls of death and suffering from COVID over the past two years, nor burnout of Malone's physician colleagues, nor...
Any of the VERY clear and VERY hard data that people who are unvaccinated are dying at much higher rates than those that are unvaccinated. (I believe Malone would just say this data—seen across the entire WORLD—is obviously just tainted and manipulated.)

ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination
So again: Malone and Rogan have discussed theoretical treatments and "modeled" analyses — remember, they're just asking questions — and promoted the idea that the vaccines are quite dangerous (despite Malone being vaccinated, I forgot to mention that), but not much else.
This is why I find Rogan's interview so irresponsible. If RM wants to say these things, that's fine. But why doesn't Rogan counter with, "Okay but why are there COVID ICUs in the hospitals but no vaccine injury ICUs?"
"Why do healthcare workers keep saying this is really bad?"
I've watched other Rogan interviews. Some I find really interesting. Often he really pushes people on their positions; questions them intently; tries to understand them; makes them clarify. But in this interview, these claims from Malone are all just accepted as medical fact.
If RM was a dermatologist and claimed that Big Sunscreen was trying to sell their products and in fact some caused a rash or flaky skin, JR wouldn't think twice, or ask, "But what about all the skin cancer sunscreen prevents? Is that not real? Are you saying SPF is a lie?"
But I digress. Now we get to the part that honestly really pissed me off and felt offensive and low for Dr. Malone: he implies that hospitals — and hospitalists, the doctors that care for patients while they're sick in the hospital — inflate COVID numbers for money.
That we put people on ventilators for money.
That we celebrate ("incentive, bonus") and inflate deaths due to COVID for money.

And honestly, if you believe these things about the medical profession, you might as well stop reading. I'm not going to convince you otherwise.🤷‍♂️
If you believe that I spent my 20s and 30s in medical training, wracking up debt, delaying adulthood, and then working nights, weekends, and holidays for my entire life so I could make "bonus" money during a pandemic, that's a worldview of humanity that I simply can't change.
But Graham, you say, aren't hospitals getting money for COVID cases?

We sure are. 💣🤯

But so is everybody else. If you believe hospitals are incentivized for COVID, so are airlines. And banks. And anyone that took PPP loans.

www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-pat...
Surprise! Healthcare has been paying more for sicker patients for A CENTURY! If you need a surgery, that costs more than an x-ray. If you need the ICU or a ventilator, that costs more than a visit to the ER.

Because you are sicker, more complex, and need more care.
So if you're going to believe that doctors are just putting people on ventilators because we get paid more (I'm salaried, I certainly don't), then you'd better start thinking we've been doing it our entire careers. Why would we start with COVID?
As an ER doctor, if I need to put you on a ventilator, I have to sedate and paralyze you first. It is a dangerous but necessary procedure when I need to do it. We must simply all be heartless, soulless monsters if we're willing to risk actively killing our patients for a dollar.
2 more things. First, RM again lies about COVID diagnoses. If COVID is related to the cause of death, it rightfully belongs on the death certificate. If not, it doesn't. The CDC is very clear on this. I've NEVER heard of anyone falsifying a death cert.

www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf
Why would I risk my medical license to lie on an official government document as easily obtainable as a death certificate?
Malone simultaneously likes to claim to be a member of the doctor club, and to also be disgusted by how low doctors will go to make a buck. Which is it?
So here RM shows his disgust at a verifiably false practice, JR questions it, and then RM calls for unity because this thing that is definitely-not-happening is tearing the country apart.
Final point on conflicting narratives: RM is blaming hospitalists, but later he relies on them for information about Delta variant and vaccine adverse events. So can hospitalists be trusted, or are they lying—or at least stretching the truth?

I'd ask the same thing of Malone.
I'm gonna stop here for the day & we're barely 75 minutes into the whole interview! I just don't understand how you can discuss all this stuff without the context of the two years of this pandemic, and 850,000 dead Americans and many burned out healthcare workers. More to come.
Part 2 is up. I'm exhausted, and I barely covered 20 more minutes of the podcast.


Part 3 on a beautiful Saturday morning with coffee and cats. Thanks for reading!

Part 4. And that's a wrap. Thanks for reading!

If you missed my analysis of Rogan's Dr. Sanjay Gupta interview, it's here:




And my final-final conclusion trying to understand Rogan the contradiction:


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