Episode 1671: Bret Weinstein & Dr. Pierre Kory

Introduction

Episode 1671 of the Joe Rogan Experience, billed as an “emergency podcast,” aired on June 22, 2021, and featured evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein and critical care physician Dr. Pierre Kory. The episode centered on promoting ivermectin as a highly effective COVID-19 treatment and prophylactic while casting doubt on the safety and necessity of COVID-19 vaccines. This episode became one of the most significant vectors of COVID-19 medical misinformation in 2021, reaching millions of listeners during a critical period when vaccine rollout was underway and vaccine hesitancy was already a major public health concern.

The claims made in this episode were subsequently contradicted by multiple large-scale randomized controlled trials, and both guests faced serious professional consequences for their promotion of ivermectin misinformation. The episode contributed to a surge in ivermectin misuse that overwhelmed poison control centers across the United States.

The Guests’ Backgrounds

Bret Weinstein

Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist who previously held a faculty position at Evergreen State College. He co-hosts the DarkHorse Podcast with his wife Heather Heying. While Weinstein holds legitimate credentials in evolutionary biology, he has no training in virology, immunology, pharmacology, or clinical medicine. Despite this, he became one of the most prominent promoters of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment during the pandemic.

A review in the academic journal AIDS and Behavior described Weinstein as having been “instrumental in spreading COVID misinformation.” Physician David Gorski, editor of Science-Based Medicine, characterized Weinstein as “one of the foremost purveyors of COVID-19 disinformation.” An article in Canadian Family Physician identified Weinstein as one of the “intelligent misinformers” whose academic credentials give medical misinformation a “superficial air of credibility.”

Sources: Wikipedia - Bret Weinstein, Science-Based Medicine

Dr. Pierre Kory

Dr. Pierre Kory is a pulmonary and critical care physician who co-founded the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), an organization that promoted ivermectin-based treatment protocols for COVID-19. In December 2020 testimony before the U.S. Senate, Kory described ivermectin as a “wonder drug” with “miraculous effectiveness” and claimed “all studies are positive.”

Kory’s promotion of ivermectin misinformation led to severe professional consequences:

In February 2022, the American Journal of Therapeutics issued an expression of concern against a systematic review of which Kory was lead author, citing suspicions about the integrity of underlying data.
In August 2023, the American Board of Internal Medicine informed Kory that his certifications were to be revoked for spreading medical misinformation.
As of August 2024, his three board certifications are listed as “not certified, revoked.”

Sources: Wikipedia - Pierre Kory, WhoWhatWhy - The Wonder Drug That Wasn’t

Key False and Misleading Claims

Claim: Ivermectin Is a “Near-Perfect COVID Prophylactic”

Weinstein claimed on the podcast that ivermectin was “a near-perfect COVID prophylactic” and that it was “good enough to end the pandemic at any point.” Kory presented meta-analyses claiming up to 86% protection against infection when used preventatively and a 62% reduction in death rates.

Fact-Check: These claims were false. The meta-analyses Kory and Weinstein cited relied heavily on low-quality, non-randomized observational studies, and critically, on a large Egyptian study that was later withdrawn due to fraud. When that fraudulent study was removed from the meta-analysis, the evidence for ivermectin’s effectiveness collapsed.

Subsequent large-scale randomized controlled trials definitively showed ivermectin does not work against COVID-19:

The TOGETHER Trial (published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 2022), a randomized, placebo-controlled trial in Brazil, found that ivermectin “did not result in a lower incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of COVID-19.”
The PRINCIPLE Trial in the UK similarly found no evidence of benefit.
The NIH ACTIV-6 Trial found no significant improvement in time to recovery.

Weinstein himself later acknowledged he was wrong to state that a study had shown a 100% effective ivermectin protocol for COVID prevention.

Sources: NEJM - TOGETHER Trial, First Draft News, McGill Office for Science and Society

Claim: Ivermectin’s Effectiveness Was Being Suppressed by Big Pharma

Weinstein promoted the conspiracy theory that the pharmaceutical industry was suppressing evidence of ivermectin’s effectiveness because ivermectin is a cheap, off-patent generic drug, and that vaccines were being pushed instead for financial reasons.

Fact-Check: This claim relies on a conspiracy theory rather than evidence. Ivermectin was extensively studied during the pandemic precisely because it was a readily available, inexpensive drug. Governments and researchers worldwide conducted numerous clinical trials. The consistent finding across well-designed trials was that ivermectin did not provide meaningful benefit against COVID-19. The FDA, WHO, EMA, and NIH all reviewed the available evidence independently and reached similar conclusions. The notion that all of these independent bodies across multiple countries conspired to suppress a cheap treatment lacks credibility and evidence.

Source: STAT News - Ivermectin: abundance of hype, dearth of evidence

Claim: COVID-19 Vaccines Are More Dangerous Than Acknowledged

Both guests cast doubt on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, with Weinstein suggesting that spike protein-based vaccines could injure large numbers of people. This framing discouraged vaccination during a period when COVID-19 was killing thousands of Americans per week.

Fact-Check: By the time this episode aired, hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered worldwide with extensive safety monitoring. While vaccines, like all medical interventions, carry some risk of side effects, the overwhelming scientific consensus established through real-world data and clinical trials was that the benefits of vaccination far outweighed the risks. The vaccines prevented millions of deaths globally.

Source: Quillette - Looking for COVID-19 Miracle Drugs? We Already Have Them. They’re Called Vaccines

Claim: India’s COVID-19 Case Drop Was Due to Ivermectin

The episode referenced India’s declining COVID-19 case counts as evidence that ivermectin was working, implying that regions using ivermectin saw better outcomes.

Fact-Check: Doctors on the ground in India described attributing case drops to ivermectin as “faith healing.” India’s COVID wave subsided due to multiple factors including natural infection rates, behavioral changes, and the progression of the delta wave. There is no controlled evidence that ivermectin was responsible for the decline. Multiple Indian states that used ivermectin widely did not see notably better outcomes than those that did not.

Source: Vice - Why Is the Intellectual Dark Web Suddenly Hyping an Unproven COVID Treatment?

Joe Rogan’s Role

Joe Rogan was not a passive host during this episode. He actively facilitated and amplified the misinformation presented by his guests:

Framing as an “emergency podcast”: By labeling this an emergency broadcast, Rogan lent urgency and credibility to unproven claims, creating a sense that mainstream medicine was failing and that his guests had life-saving information being suppressed.
No meaningful pushback: Rogan did not challenge any of the extraordinary claims made about ivermectin’s effectiveness, nor did he question the quality of the studies being cited. He did not bring on any opposing medical experts to provide balance.
Amplifying the suppression narrative: Rogan engaged sympathetically with the narrative that YouTube censorship and institutional resistance to ivermectin proved a conspiracy, rather than recognizing that platforms were attempting to limit the spread of dangerous medical misinformation.
Platforming without accountability: With one of the largest podcast audiences in the world, Rogan gave two of the most prominent ivermectin advocates an unfiltered platform to reach millions of people with claims that multiple major health organizations had already warned against.
No correction or follow-up: Rogan never issued a correction or follow-up when the major clinical trials (TOGETHER, PRINCIPLE, ACTIV-6) subsequently showed ivermectin was ineffective against COVID-19.

Real-World Harm

The ivermectin misinformation promoted in this episode, combined with similar messaging from other sources, contributed to measurable public health harm:

Poison Control Surge

The National Poison Data System reported a 245% increase in ivermectin exposure cases from July to August 2021, rising from 133 to 459 cases.
Poison control centers received a five-fold increase in calls about human ivermectin exposures in July 2021 compared to pre-pandemic baseline levels.
At least 70% of calls to Mississippi’s poison control center were related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at farm supply stores.
The Oregon Poison Center managed 25 cases of intentional ivermectin misuse between August 1 and September 14, 2021, with five hospitalizations and two ICU admissions.

Sources: NPR - Poison Control Centers Fielding Surge of Ivermectin Calls, NEJM - Toxic Effects from Ivermectin Use, OHSU News

CDC Health Advisory

The CDC issued a formal Health Advisory (HAN-00449) on August 26, 2021, warning clinicians about the surge in ivermectin poisoning cases and urging the public not to use the drug for COVID-19 prevention or treatment.

Source: CDC Health Alert Network

Vaccine Hesitancy

By promoting ivermectin as a superior alternative to vaccination, this episode contributed to vaccine hesitancy during a period when increasing vaccination rates was critical to reducing COVID-19 deaths. People who chose ivermectin over vaccination were left unprotected against severe disease and death.

Toxic Effects

Reported toxic effects from ivermectin misuse included severe confusion, ataxia (loss of coordination), seizures, hypotension (dangerously low blood pressure), hallucinations, coma, and in some cases, death.

Source: American Medical Association

Platform Response

This episode was among the content that drew significant scrutiny to Spotify’s relationship with Joe Rogan. YouTube removed the original upload of the episode for violating its medical misinformation policies. Weinstein and Heying’s YouTube channels were demonetized, and they subsequently moved broadcasts to the alternative platform Odysee.

Conclusion

Episode 1671 represents one of the most consequential episodes of medical misinformation in the Joe Rogan Experience’s history. It featured two of the most prominent ivermectin advocates making extraordinary claims about the drug’s effectiveness that were subsequently disproven by rigorous clinical trials. The episode’s framing as an “emergency” broadcast, combined with Rogan’s uncritical amplification of the guests’ claims, reached millions of listeners and contributed to a public health crisis of ivermectin misuse, vaccine hesitancy, and preventable harm. Both guests have since faced serious professional consequences for their promotion of COVID-19 misinformation, with Dr. Kory losing his board certifications and Weinstein being widely identified in academic literature as a key spreader of pandemic disinformation.