Vaccines on the Joe Rogan Experience
47 fact-checked claims across 10 episodes · Aug 2021 to Mar 2025 · updated Jul 20, 2026
Each is a receipt: the exact quote, its timestamp, what published evidence says, and who benefits.
Most claims
- Suzanne Humphries (13)
- Peter McCullough (12)
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (10)
- Joe Rogan (5)
- Robert Malone (3)
Related topics
Logged claims
“the calculations that were done suggested when they extrapolated up that there may well be up to 1 million serious adverse effects from the COVID vaccines in t…”
Malhotra claims a BMC Infectious Diseases survey-based extrapolation found up to 1 million serious COVID vaccine adverse effects and 278,000 deaths in the US in 2021.
“So along comes polio research, and the polio vaccine, even to this day, is made on African green monkey kidney cells. Now, the African green monkey kidneys ear…”
Humphries claims the polio vaccine is still made on African green monkey kidney cells and that Dr. Bernice Eddy discovered the cancer-causing SV40 virus in the vaccine substrate.
“passed in 1986. But before 1986, we had 1976, which was the swine flu vaccine fiasco. And that was a situation where there was so much injury that the vaccine …”
Humphries states that the 1976 swine flu vaccine caused so much injury (Guillain-Barre) that manufacturers lost insurance and the government indemnified them, setting a precedent for the 1986 vaccine act.
“Anthony Fauci writes about it. Morens and Fauci wrote a paper basically admitting everything. I think it was in 2023 or 2024 about these shots. And he said the…”
Humphries claims a 2023 or 2024 paper by Morens and Fauci admitted that COVID shots are the same as flu shots and would not have been licensed under prior standards.
“Now, Tenforde came in in JAMA, and this was published in the fall of this year, and they had an 85% protection overall against hospitalization.”
McCullough cites a JAMA paper reporting 85% vaccine protection against hospitalization while suggesting the true protective effect is inflated by testing bias.
“are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in the hospital with COVID.”
Rogan cites a study/headline claiming boys 12-15 are 4-6 times more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than to be hospitalized with COVID.
“he did some kind of modeling and found you had to have six times more neutralizing antibodies to protect from actually getting infection than from like, you kn…”
Patrick cites a Miles Davenport-group modeling study (Nature Medicine) claiming six times more neutralizing antibodies are needed to prevent infection than to prevent hospitalization from COVID-19.
“no one says anything about the 40% increase in all-cause mortality that mysteriously arose after they made people get shot up with some experimental shit.”
Rogan claims there was a 40% increase in all-cause mortality mysteriously arising after COVID-19 vaccination.
“The VAERS system is like, what does it get? Like one, 2% of the actual adverse events that are reported. Who fucking knows how many people?”
Rogan claims VAERS captures only about 1-2% of actual vaccine adverse events that occur.
“1976, swine flu vaccine was pulled because it was found to cause a debilitating neurological condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome in about one in 100,000 p…”
Malhotra claims COVID vaccines cause serious harm in at least 1 in 800 people, a far higher rate than historical vaccines pulled from the market (swine flu 1 in 100,000, rotavirus 1 in 10,000).
“You have seven times better immunity than someone who gets vaccinated, which is proof.”
Rogan claims that natural COVID infection confers seven times better immunity than vaccination.
“So how this affects me is that I'm a kidney specialist, and I looked at the curve of kidney cancers that have gone up since the inception of polio vaccines and…”
Humphries claims kidney cancer rates rose after the introduction of polio vaccines and SV40, and that SV40 enhances two oncogenes and inhibits two tumor suppressors.
“It's because the hospital would lose something like $40,000 if they didn't give a vaccine within the first 24 hours of admission.”
Humphries claims a hospital would lose or gain roughly $40,000 depending on whether it administered a vaccine within the first 24 hours of a patient's admission.
“You'd have to look up the schedule, but I believe it starts at six months and they get three of them kind of boom, boom, boom.”
Humphries claims the COVID vaccine schedule for infants starts at six months old with three doses given in close succession.
“And it said, quote, any doubts whether or not well-founded about the safety of the vaccination program must not be allowed to exist. That's literally what it s…”
Humphries claims a 1984 US federal register document stated that any doubts, well-founded or not, about vaccination safety must not be allowed to exist.
“What we show in here, what other scientists have shown, is that it's about 3.5% of the contribution from medicine goes into our extended lifespan. 3.5% based o…”
Humphries claims medicine (antibiotics, vaccines, etc.) contributed only about 3.5 percent to extended human lifespan, with the rest from sanitation and living conditions.
“We added a chapter called The White Plague. The White Plague is also tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was a side effect of the smallpox vaccine. Tuberculosis rates w…”
Humphries claims tuberculosis was a side effect of the smallpox vaccine and that Edward Jenner's child and two test subjects died of tuberculosis.
“And the fact of the matter is, is that all cancers in humanity have gone up since the inception”
Humphries claims that all cancers in humanity have increased since the beginning of vaccination.
“So it's been a detriment for measles and it's been a detriment for chickenpox. So chickenpox we used to get continuously. Adults didn't get shingles. It was ve…”
Humphries claims shingles was very rare in adults before the chickenpox vaccine came out.
“So if you're testing a measles vaccine, you know, you could test it against a diphtheria vaccine or a flu shot vaccine is tested against a hepatitis A vaccine.…”
Humphries claims vaccine trials do not use saline placebos but test against other vaccines, and that saline-placebo studies show vaccines make recipients more susceptible to the disease.
“This is another part of the story, is that doctor's likely to lose $250,000 a year if they don't do that because there's incentive given to hospitals and docto…”
Humphries claims a doctor is likely to lose $250,000 a year if they do not follow ACIP vaccine recommendations because of financial incentives to hospitals and doctors.
“this figure one from the Tshope paper, 27% never deviated from normal heart function.”
McCullough applies a 13% permanent-impairment rate from a pre-COVID pediatric myocarditis study to predict that 13% of vaccine-associated myocarditis cases in kids will develop permanent heart damage or failure.
“And that's CDC's own study says it undercounts injuries by between 10 and 100 percent. And so or 100 times, not 100 percent, 100 times. So I think VAERS has 17…”
Kennedy claims a CDC-linked study (Lazarus) shows VAERS undercounts vaccine injuries by up to 100-fold and that VAERS has 17,000 reported COVID vaccine deaths and over a million injuries.
“Who's apologized for being incorrect about what did Rachel Maddow ever apologize for telling everybody that if you get the COVID vaccine you're never gonna get…”
Rogan claims Rachel Maddow told viewers the COVID vaccine meant they would never get COVID and that transmission would stop entirely, and that she never apologized despite this being false.
“13,000 certified cases of myocarditis, pericarditis, that number should be no more than 600 on a background rate.”
McCullough claims that as of the taping, there were 13,000 CDC-certified cases of vaccine-associated myocarditis/pericarditis compared to an expected background rate of no more than roughly 600-800 cases per year.
“Well, they certainly have less instances of autism, which is really fascinating. It's very, very fascinating. The Amish have less autism? Yeah. There's almost …”
Carlson claims the Amish have almost no autism, implying it as evidence against vaccines given their lower vaccination rates.
“And that the people who are most vaccinated have 3.5 times the rate. And I could be wrong about this, but I think this was said 3.5 times the risk of illness t…”
Kennedy claims a Cleveland Clinic study found the most-vaccinated people had 3.5 times the risk of COVID illness compared to the unvaccinated after vaccine efficacy waned.
“So, you know, all of those things. Now, we went from 6 percent of Americans having chronic disease. By 1986, we're starting to have the vaccines and we get 11.…”
Kennedy claims chronic disease prevalence in American children rose from 6% in the 1960s to 11.8% by 1986 and 54% today, implicitly linking the rise to the expanding vaccine schedule.
“The Spanish flu, there's, you know, not a definitive, but very, very strong evidence. The Spanish flu was vaccine-induced flu. The deaths were vaccine-induced,…”
Kennedy claims there is strong evidence that the 1918 Spanish flu deaths were actually vaccine-induced rather than caused by the influenza virus itself.
“Mercury is a thousand times more neurotoxic than lead. You would never shoot lead into your baby.”
Kennedy claims mercury is a thousand times more neurotoxic than lead, arguing this shows the historical use of thimerosal (ethylmercury) in vaccines was reckless.
“oh, Kennedy, it was loaded with mistakes. And six years later, Salon, under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, takes it down and says, we found mistake…”
Kennedy claims Salon retracted his 2005 "Deadly Immunity" article under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry despite never identifying any factual errors.
“What he found in his first run through the data is there was an 1135% greater or elevated risk for an autism diagnosis among the kids who had gotten it in thei…”
Kennedy claims a CDC-commissioned analysis (Verstraeten) of the Vaccine Safety Datalink found an 1135% elevated relative risk of autism diagnosis in infants who received the hepatitis B vaccine within their first 30 days of life.
“But in 1976, when they had this, you know, really bad flu shot that they did the same thing with, they did a global rollout and everybody had to take it. And t…”
Kennedy claims the 1976 swine flu vaccine was pulled from the market after only 25 reported deaths, implying a much lower bar for pulling that vaccine than modern COVID vaccines faced.
“It goes to the ovary at a very high rate, like 11% of the lipids. Now, this wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to stay in the arm where it got jabbed, …”
Malone claims that Pfizer's biodistribution data show about 11% of the vaccine's lipid nanoparticles accumulate in the ovaries, which he presents as unexpected and concerning.
“So if we have 9,000 Americans truly have died after the vaccine and the underreporting number is about five, we're at 45,000 American lives lost.”
McCullough calculates that applying a roughly 4-5x underreporting multiplier (which he says was derived from CMS Medicare/Medicaid death and vaccination records cited in an FDA whistleblower lawsuit) to the 9,000 US VAERS vaccine-death reports yields approximately 45,000 actual American deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines.
“What does the VA data show you? 96% of people who take the vaccines never get COVID.”
McCullough states VA data shows that 96% of vaccinated individuals never contract COVID-19, framing this as evidence the vaccines are given to people who were never at risk rather than treating disease.
“the natural infection, the antibody titer is much softer than with the vaccines because with the vaccines, you get antibodies against one protein, the spike pr…”
McCullough claims natural COVID-19 infection produces antibodies against 27 different viral proteins, making natural immunity broader than vaccine-induced immunity.
“39% of transmission occurred from fully vaccinated to fully vaccinated individuals. I mean, it's a pretty large number.”
McCullough cites a Lancet contact-tracing study finding 39% of transmission occurred between fully vaccinated individuals as evidence vaccines don't stop spread.
“they ascertained that 86% of the time, there was no other cause outside the vaccine. No other cause. 86%.”
McCullough cites a McLachlan analysis claiming that in 86% of reviewed VAERS deaths, reviewers found no cause of death other than the vaccine.
“fast forward where we are today. We're at 18,000 deaths. And this is just the VAERS, which is underreported.”
McCullough states VAERS shows 18,000 deaths reported after COVID-19 vaccination and characterizes these as all confirmed, causally-linked events, further claiming they are 'certified by the CDC' and 'really happened.'
“We had 23% of Americans in the hospital who were vaccinated, but they had COVID-19. Remember in June, remember that talking point that was issued? 99% of peopl…”
McCullough claims that by June 2021, 23% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the US were vaccinated, contradicting an earlier '99% unvaccinated' talking point he calls propaganda.
“one of the original antigenic vaccines that was tested in Australia exposed that HIV epitope. It turned everybody in the trial HIV positive who took a COVID-19…”
McCullough claims an early Australian COVID-19 vaccine candidate turned trial participants HIV-positive due to a molecular HIV epitope in its design.
“You know, I said not one of these 72 vaccines has ever been tested pre-licensing in a placebo-controlled trial where you're looking at vaccinated versus unvacc…”
Kennedy claims none of the 72 vaccines on the childhood schedule have ever been tested against a true placebo in a trial comparing vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children for health outcomes.
“And it was killing one out of – killing or giving severe brain damage to one in 300 kids. And it was pulled in the United States. It was pulled in Europe. But …”
Kennedy claims a version of the DPT vaccine caused severe brain damage or death in 1 of every 300 children, was banned in the US and Europe, but is still given to 161 million African children annually via Bill Gates-backed programs.
“that study in Israel, which is like, what, 2.5 million people, I think, they said that it's between six and 13 times more effective than the vaccine. That is s…”
Malone claims an Israeli study of ~2.5 million people found prior COVID infection (natural immunity) is 6-13x (and elsewhere 27x) more effective than vaccination at preventing hospitalized COVID.
“The number that keeps getting cited is one in a thousand people have adverse events, including myocarditis. If myocarditis that requires hospitalization is one…”
Malone states that myocarditis requiring hospitalization after COVID vaccination occurs in about 1 in 2,700 boys.
“we've had 146 million people who've had the respiratory infection. Less than 1% died. Right. But the ones that have gotten the injection and died or got myocar…”
McCullough asserts that COVID-19 vaccines have caused death or myocarditis in a comparably significant share of the roughly 200 million vaccinated Americans.