Episode 1873: Brigham Buhler

Introduction

Episode 1873 of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Brigham Buhler, presents significant concerns about medical misinformation and the platforming of someone without appropriate medical credentials making authoritative health claims. While Buhler offers an insider perspective on pharmaceutical industry practices from his experience as a former sales representative, the episode veers into problematic territory with COVID-19 vaccine skepticism and promotion of unregulated regenerative medicine therapies.

Buhler, who holds a business degree from the University of Houston Bauer College of Business (not a pharmacy or medical degree), operates Ways2Well, a functional medicine clinic, and ReviveRx, a compounding pharmacy. Despite lacking formal medical or pharmaceutical training, he makes broad claims about vaccines, treatments, and healthcare that require careful scrutiny.

COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation

Claims About Vaccine Development and Safety

During the episode, Buhler expressed criticism of COVID-19 vaccine development and marketing, including skepticism about pharmaceutical company motivations and claims about underreporting of vaccine adverse events. This type of vaccine skepticism has been a recurring theme on The Joe Rogan Experience and has contributed to vaccine hesitancy during a critical public health crisis.

Expert Consensus: The COVID-19 vaccines underwent rigorous testing in large-scale clinical trials involving tens of thousands of participants before receiving emergency use authorization. According to the CDC, more than 13 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, with comprehensive safety monitoring systems tracking adverse events. While no vaccine is without risk, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, with benefits far outweighing risks.

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), often cited by vaccine skeptics, is a passive surveillance system that accepts all reports regardless of causation. Healthcare professionals and regulatory agencies carefully analyze VAERS data, but raw numbers do not establish causation. [Source: CDC - Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work]

Credential Concerns

Buhler’s Background and Expertise

Brigham Buhler’s professional background is in pharmaceutical sales and business, not medicine or pharmacy. According to available information, he graduated from the University of Houston Bauer College of Business with a degree in business, and worked for over 15 years as a pharmaceutical sales representative for companies like Eli Lilly and Stryker.

While his experience provides insider knowledge of pharmaceutical industry marketing practices, it does not qualify him to make authoritative medical judgments about vaccine safety, stem cell therapies, or other complex medical interventions. This represents a pattern on The Joe Rogan Experience where individuals with tangential industry experience are treated as medical experts.

Regenerative Medicine and FDA Regulatory Issues

Peptides and Compounding Pharmacies

Buhler’s company ReviveRx is a compounding pharmacy that has offered peptide therapies. In September 2023 (after this episode aired), the FDA reclassified 17 commonly-used therapeutic peptides to Category 2 of the Bulk Drug Substance list, effectively barring compounding pharmacies from creating and distributing these peptide-based therapies.

The FDA noted that many peptides “are not the subject of an applicable USP or NF monograph, are not components of an FDA-approved human drug, and do not appear on the 503A bulks list,” making them ineligible for compounding under federal law. The agency has sent numerous warning letters to compounding pharmacies regarding unapproved or inaccurately marketed peptide-based products. [Source: FDA - Compounding and the FDA]

Stem Cell Therapy Claims

The episode included discussion of stem cell therapies and regenerative medicine, areas where Buhler’s clinic Ways2Well offers treatments. While legitimate stem cell research shows promise for certain conditions, the field has been plagued by unregulated clinics offering unproven treatments.

The FDA has warned consumers about stem cell therapies that have not been approved for specific uses, noting that some clinics market stem cell products that have not been shown to be safe or effective. Patients have suffered serious adverse events, including vision loss, infections, and tumor formation from unproven stem cell treatments. [Source: FDA - FDA Warns About Stem Cell Therapies]

Unsubstantiated Medical Claims

”82% of All-Cause Mortality is Preventable”

Buhler claimed during the episode that “82% of all-cause mortality is preventable.” This extraordinarily high figure lacks proper context and sourcing. While lifestyle factors certainly contribute to chronic disease, suggesting that over four-fifths of all deaths are preventable oversimplifies complex medical realities and may give listeners false confidence about their ability to avoid serious illness through lifestyle changes alone.

Medical research does show that modifiable risk factors contribute significantly to premature mortality, but the 82% figure appears to conflate different studies and contexts. Genetics, environmental factors, access to healthcare, and random biological variation all play roles in health outcomes that cannot simply be prevented through individual choices.

Pharmaceutical Industry Criticism: Valid Points and Overreach

Legitimate Concerns

It’s important to note that Buhler raises some legitimate criticisms of pharmaceutical industry practices based on his sales experience:

• The influence of pharmaceutical marketing on prescribing patterns
• Patent extension strategies that delay generic competition
• High medication costs that create access barriers
• Profit-driven decision-making that may not align with patient interests

These are real systemic issues that healthcare researchers, policy experts, and even medical professionals acknowledge. The pharmaceutical industry has faced billions in fines for illegal marketing practices, price-fixing, and other violations.

Where Criticism Becomes Problematic

The issue arises when valid industry criticism is used to justify blanket skepticism of evidence-based medicine, vaccines, and regulatory oversight. The pharmaceutical industry has serious problems, but that doesn’t mean all medications are harmful or that vaccines are dangerous. This logical fallacy—using legitimate concerns about industry practices to discredit specific medical interventions with strong safety and efficacy data—is a common pattern in medical misinformation.

Real-World Harm

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, amplified by influential platforms like The Joe Rogan Experience, has had measurable public health consequences. Studies have shown that unvaccinated individuals faced significantly higher rates of severe COVID-19, hospitalization, and death compared to vaccinated individuals, particularly during the Delta and early Omicron waves.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that between January 2021 and April 2022, COVID-19 vaccination prevented approximately 234,000 deaths in the United States alone. Vaccine hesitancy driven by misinformation has therefore had deadly consequences. [Source: JAMA - COVID-19 Vaccination and Non-COVID-19 Mortality Risk]

Additionally, patients seeking unproven stem cell and peptide therapies may spend thousands of dollars on treatments lacking solid evidence, delay seeking conventional medical care, or experience adverse effects from unregulated interventions.

Conclusion

Episode 1873 exemplifies a recurring problem with The Joe Rogan Experience: providing a massive platform to individuals who lack appropriate credentials while they make sweeping medical claims. While Brigham Buhler’s insider perspective on pharmaceutical sales practices may offer some value, his COVID-19 vaccine skepticism and promotion of unregulated regenerative medicine therapies spread misinformation to millions of listeners.

The episode demonstrates how partial truths about industry problems can be weaponized to undermine public trust in evidence-based medicine. A former pharmaceutical sales representative with a business degree should not be treated as an authority on vaccine safety, stem cell biology, or complex medical interventions.

Listeners deserve context about a guest’s actual qualifications, fact-checking of medical claims in real-time, and recognition that criticizing pharmaceutical industry practices does not automatically validate alternative treatments or justify vaccine skepticism.