Joe Rogan shares Covid misinformation 24 hours after promising not to share Covid misinformation

Some promises can’t be kept, it seems.

Joe Rogan, whose podcast tends to lean into misinformation about Covid-19, decided to share more untruths about the virus 24 hours after promising he wouldn’t do it again.

In a since-deleted tweet, Rogan reshared a story about the drug ivermectin, something he backs and has become a cause in many right-wing conservative circles.

“Well lookie here,” Rogan wrote along with a story about a study in Japan that claimed that the drug was effective against omicron in a phase III clinical trial.

The story was incorrect and was later updated to reflect the truth.

Sign upto our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Despite Rogan deleting the tweet, he didn’t offer a statement or make a correction.

But some people did hold on to his tweet, including Daniel Dale, a fact-checker from CNN.

“Rogan’s tweet came hours - like more than 10 hours - after Reuters corrected its story to make clear this company did *not* say ivermectin had been found effective against omicron in a clinical trial,” Dale wrote, in part, while sharing a picture of Rogan’s tweet and the Reuters story.

Ivermectin is approved to combat parasites and numerous neglected tropical diseases in animals and humans.

There is no clinical trial evidence that the drug can help prevent Covid, but research is currently in the works, as expressed in a University of Oxford report.

Rogan reportedly received $100m (£77m) from Spotify for the rights to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and has spoken about how he took ivermectin on the show, along with other treatments when he tested positive for Covid.

The podcaster and Spotify have also recently come under fire for spreading misinformation about vaccines and the virus.

Rock icon Neil Young decided to remove his music from the streaming platform due to Rogan’s podcast.

“They can have Rogan or Young.“Not both,” he wrote at the time.

Elsewhere, fellow musician Joni Mitchell also removed her music from Spotify following the issues surrounding the spread of misinformation about the virus.

“I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue,” she wrote in a statement published on her website.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.