A group of 270 US doctors, scientists, healthcare professionals and professors have written an open letter to streaming company Spotify, expressing concern about medical misinformation on The Joe Rogan Experience, listed as the platform's most popular program.
The platform is asked to establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform.
It accuses Joe Rogan of having a history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the Covid-19 Pandemic.
The letter was first reported by Rolling Stone, which quoted an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago school of public health as saying Rogan was a menace to public health for airing anti-vaccine ideology.
The letter calls out an episode of the show from December of last year that features Robert Malone, a researcher who was involved in the development of the vaccine technology that led to some of the leading Covid-19 vaccines but has since been criticized for spreading vaccine misinformation.
The episode was criticized for promoting conspiracy theories.
The JRE platform was used by Dr. Malone to promote false claims about Covid-19 vaccines and a theory that societal leaders have hypnotized the public. The letter said that many of the statements have been discredited.
In the episode, Malone had a number of baseless beliefs, including the false claim that hospitals are financially incentivized to wrongly diagnose deaths as having been caused by Covid-19, as well as the belief that mass formation psychosis is responsible for people's belief in vaccine efficacy.
Rogan said on air that there were rumors that a hospital gets paid per Covid death and that the government gives them money and that they're incentivized.
The experts wrote that the events of this scale have dangerous ramifications.
As scientists, we face backlash and resistance from the public. We are tasked with repairing the public's damaged understanding of science and medicine. As physicians, we bear the burden of a Pandemic that has stretched our medical systems to their limits and only stands to be worsened by the anti-vaccination sentiment woven into this and other episodes of Rogan's.
The letter states that one of the two recent JRE guests was Malone. These actions are offensive and dangerous.
Rogan, who has been described by the New York Times as one of the most consumed media products on the planet, has legions of devoted followers but throughout the epidemic has spread misleading and false claims.
The letter concluded that this is not only a scientific or medical concern, but it is a sociological issue of devastating proportions and that it is responsible for allowing this activity to thrive on its platform.
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