EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,080 words- 0:00 – 15:00
And we're live. How…
- JRJoe Rogan
And we're live. How are you, sir?
- PHPeter Hotez
How are you?
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you again.
- PHPeter Hotez
I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for-
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for doing this, man.
- PHPeter Hotez
... thanks for having me.
- JRJoe Rogan
I... No, I should tell people before we get started, I did not know when I asked you to come back on that you were heavily involved in this whole vaccine debate. What I wanted to have you on to talk about is tropical diseases, because, uh, I remember when we did that sci-fi show, um, you explained to me that some ungodly percentage of people that live in tropical climates are infected by parasites.
- PHPeter Hotez
That's right. Well, my day job is developing vaccines for tropical diseases. We develop the vaccines no one else will make because, uh, they're for the world's poorest people. So we call them tropical diseases, but they really are diseases of poverty. The vaccine issue, the ad- the advocacy issue around vaccines and autism is kind of a new thing that I got drawn into just because I'm a, a parent of an adult daughter with autism and I make vaccines, so it was a natural that I'd get drawn into it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, so when I said that you were gonna come on, then I got inundated by people that are... You know, the- the vaccine thing is such a polarizing issue.
- PHPeter Hotez
Yeah, it's awful. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, so many people seem to think they absolutely know what causes what, especially when it comes to something like autism, which is a, it's a huge issue in this country, it's a huge issue around the world, and it doesn't, didn't used to seem to be. The question is, was that because it was undiagnosed? Was that because i- it just, there's m- it's more prevalent today?
- PHPeter Hotez
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you think? What is your take on this?
- PHPeter Hotez
Well, I don't think we really know. Um, one thing's for sure, we're diagnosing people with autism who we diagnose wi- as something else in the past, you know, whether it was, you know, really horrible diagnoses, we'd use pejorative terms like mental retardation-
- JRJoe Rogan
What's the matter, Jamie? Sorry. I, my bad. Just telling you the clock was off. Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry.
- PHPeter Hotez
Should we start again?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, no, no, it's okay. He was just saying-
- PHPeter Hotez
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... he was just telling me that the, our clock is screwed up because of the daylight savings time thing.
- PHPeter Hotez
Oh, right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sorry. And totally unrelated to what you were saying.
- PHPeter Hotez
The whole country's clock is screwed up because of daylight savings time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah.
- PHPeter Hotez
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, so, so we don't know. We don't-
- PHPeter Hotez
Well, you know, o- one thing's clear, that the number of diagnoses is going up, but part of that is because what we used to call pejorative things like mental retardation now get thrown into the autism category. The other thing now-
- JRJoe Rogan
They do?
- PHPeter Hotez
... absolutely. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
How so?
- PHPeter Hotez
Well, you know, now we call it as part of the autism spectrum. Um, we also, because autism often has a lot of associated intellectual disabilities, not always, but sometimes. Uh, the other is that, um-
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- PHPeter Hotez
million children. One of the things that the anti-vaccine lobby does is they play this game of what I ... well, it's not really a game, but what, what they ca- what they do is play this kind of, uh, thing of vaccine whack-a-mole because at first they alleged it was the MMR vaccine and that came out, out of the study that was published in The Lancet in 1998. Then another group came along and said, "No, no, no, we didn't mean the MMR vaccine, we meant the thimerosal preservative that used to be in vaccine." And the scientific community not only demo- debunked the MMR link, they debunked the thimerosal link. Then the anti-vaccine lobby came along and said, "No, no, we didn't mean that. We're spacing vaccines too close together." Then they changed it around again-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PHPeter Hotez
... uh, saying now it's the alum or aluminum in vaccines. So the, and then each time the scientific community responds with massive epidemiologic studies showing just absolutely none of those things are true.
- JRJoe Rogan
And do you think that it's just when you look at, say, if there's one in a million that has an issue with this and there's-
- PHPeter Hotez
And it's not autism, by the way.
- JRJoe Rogan
So whatev- whatever those i- issues are, that they hear these stories and these stories do accumulate because there's 300-plus million people in this country and over 10, 20 years of one in a million you develop a significant history of cases where children did have issues with vaccines. So these people hear about these stories and people are terrified. Obviously you're ... I have children. You become very overprotective of your children. You worry a lot.
- PHPeter Hotez
Right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then you also don't know, like why do they get so many shots all in a row like that? Why does a baby get 10 shots in a day? That seems crazy.
- PHPeter Hotez
Well, they don't get 10 shots in a day. Most of the vac-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ever?
- PHPeter Hotez
Most of the vaccines are now combined. So for instance, in one vaccine, we can vaccinate against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, um, polio, uh, haemophilus influenza type B, which is a terrible cause of, of meningitis and in some cases now even hepatitis. So one shot is protecting-
- JRJoe Rogan
So they just give like soup of all these things?
- PHPeter Hotez
Well, it's combined.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PHPeter Hotez
And there's all sorts of studies showing that it's safe to combine them and, and it's fantastic. Now you can vaccinate with one shot against six diseases. And these-
- JRJoe Rogan
So-
- PHPeter Hotez
... are life-threatening diseases.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. So the only concern is the child's immune system when they're bombarded with this one ... So a lot of times it causes them-
- PHPeter Hotez
Does-
- JRJoe Rogan
... to be tired or they get sick or they don't feel very good.
- PHPeter Hotez
Yeah, well the point is the immune system is not bombarded.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PHPeter Hotez
I think that's another kind of a-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not?
- PHPeter Hotez
... misnomer that the, or a misunderstanding that's put out by the anti-vaccine lobby. Remember, the child's gut, the intestines and the respiratory tree is, is this, or are organs of antigen presentation. A baby on average is exposed to hundreds of new antigens every day. So the idea that you're gonna, quote, "overwhelm" the immune system with a vaccine against six diseases just doesn't make any sense either.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PHPeter Hotez
Again, this is all phony baloney stuff put out by the anti-vaccine lobby. Let's, let's be clear. The anti-vaccine lobby owns the internet right now. They've-
- JRJoe Rogan
What does that mean?
- PHPeter Hotez
What that means is they've got ... they've put out now by some estimates 500 anti-vaccine websites so that every time you put the word vaccine into a search engine, whether it's Yahoo or Google, you're gonna get anti-vaccine misinformation. That's number one. Second, we know now it's amplified on social media.... like Facebook, uh, other forms of social media. So, uh, third, um, you know, the, look at the Amazon site. I mean, it's, it's incredible. So my book, this book, the good news is it's ... I think it's ... Right now, it's the highest-rated pro-vaccine book on Amazon. The bad news is overall it's ranked about 20 because there's 19 other phony baloney anti-vaccine books-
- JRJoe Rogan
So who-
- 30:00 – 45:00
But hasn't- haven't people…
- PHPeter Hotez
come back- roaring back with a vengeance.
- JRJoe Rogan
But hasn't- haven't people contracted polio outside of those areas? I mean, those are the areas where it's common.
- PHPeter Hotez
E- ev- every now and then some cases pop up.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PHPeter Hotez
We had some in ... You know, wherever ... And this can get, uh, into a whole nother topic. Wherever there's collapse in health systems infrastructure-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PHPeter Hotez
... such as during tu- from war or political instability, these diseases can come back.
- JRJoe Rogan
They can come back and the people that are vulnerable, the children that are not immunized.
- PHPeter Hotez
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And when you're immunized, you're not vulnerable?
- PHPeter Hotez
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. This is, uh, i- it's a really confusing thing for people because on the outside they w- people always want to think that big pharma-Look, I've, I've said some terrible things about big pharma and the reason being is painkillers, 'cause painkillers and antidepressants, and there's, uh, SSRI's, which are overprescribed and... The painkiller one kills me because I know people directly that have been addicted to these goddamn things and then doctors are passing them out like candy.
- PHPeter Hotez
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So people look at big pharma as being, "Oh, these are the monsters that push this." They're also the people that give you things that save people's lives.
- PHPeter Hotez
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's, there's a lot going on there.
- PHPeter Hotez
Yeah, I'm no, I'm no big defender of, uh, of the big pharmaceutical companies. I mean, one of the things that the anti-vax, the insults that anti-vaxxers hurl at me is they say I'm a shill for industry. They say I'm, uh, secretly taking money from Merck and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PHPeter Hotez
... GlaxoSmithKline. It's all crap. I'm, we don't... I don't take a penny from them and I, and I, and that's, it's not even realistic.
- JRJoe Rogan
How do you get paid? Just by the, from the university and-
- PHPeter Hotez
I get paid by the university and some of that, some of my salary is offset by non, grants from nonprofit foundations. Um, then, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
And this is because of-
- PHPeter Hotez
Like, like the National Institutes of Health, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... tropical diseases? Yes.
- PHPeter Hotez
And then they say I'm secretly making millions of dollars for vaccines for hookworm and schistosomiasis and Chagas disease and-
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you do with all that money?
- PHPeter Hotez
Uh, because my wife says, "If only that were the case," right?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PHPeter Hotez
These are diseases of the poorest of the poor. I'll never make a pen- penny on these diseases. So in fact, you know, one of the frustrations I have with the big pharmaceutical companies is we've te- gotten a lot, made a lot of progress with their vaccines. We've gone all the way from discovery, through early phase process development and manufacturing, and IND filing with the FDA, investigational new drug applications. But we're getting kind of stuck at phase one, phase two clinical trials because we don't have the big pharma money to take us all the way to licensure. So I've had a lot of meetings with the big pharmaceutical companies to see if they can partner with us and so far that hasn't happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
So d- is, has there ever been any discussion or any interest in creating some sort of, uh, a compelling documentary that's pro-vaccination that can counter all these things? 'Cause there's, there's quite a few health-related documentaries that I know are horseshit, because I've talked to actual real scientists-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
I'm busy, bro. (laughs)…
- PHPeter Hotez
your flu vaccine, you're taking a terrible chance. And, and why not? W- I mean, what, what are you risking by getting the flu vaccine?
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm busy, bro. (laughs)
- PHPeter Hotez
You know what? You know, you know where I g- and you know where I get my vaccinations?
- JRJoe Rogan
Walgreens?
- PHPeter Hotez
Uh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PHPeter Hotez
Even better. I, we have a big grocery store chain in, in Texas, a big supermarket called H-E-B.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you get it up the nose?
- PHPeter Hotez
I get it ... (laughs) No, I get it, I get the injection, right, in the pharmacy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm. Really?
- PHPeter Hotez
The phar- all of my vaccines I've gotten for the last few years have been given by the pharmacist.
- JRJoe Rogan
Interesting. So now-
- PHPeter Hotez
Couldn't, couldn't be easier.
- JRJoe Rogan
... are you, uh, have you ever gotten the flu since you've been getting the vaccine every year?
- PHPeter Hotez
Uh, well, you know, I've gotten, I've gotten sick with a, like a cold, like a, like a sore throat and feeling crummy. Was that a mild case of flu? I can't really tell.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. Um, but you've never gotten sick right after you got a vaccine? Some people do, right?
- PHPeter Hotez
No. No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Some people do get a vaccine and then they have an ad- adverse reaction to it?
- PHPeter Hotez
Well, sometimes, you know, after getting your vaccine you can get, you get some soreness-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PHPeter Hotez
... and you can feel maybe a, a slight fever for-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PHPeter Hotez
... a few hours or a day, but usually it's, you're fine.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is that?
- PHPeter Hotez
What is that?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, what is that fever? Why, why are you getting a fever from-
- PHPeter Hotez
Because the v- the vaccine is stimulating the immune system and stimulating the inflammatory system.
- JRJoe Rogan
So even though you feel like you're getting sick because of the vaccine, it's actually good for your immune system?
- PHPeter Hotez
That, that's right. And you're not really sick. I mean, it's nothing like as, nearly as bad as getting the flu. Um, the other vaccine-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 1:00:00 – 1:13:49
Yes. …
- PHPeter Hotez
400 million have hookworm infection, 400 million have whipworms. And a lot of these are wormy diseases. 200 million people with scabies, which is an ectoparasite on, on the skin that causes terrible itching and, and secondary bacterial infections. Schistosomiasis is another one. The point is, every ... Almost every single person who is in extreme poverty has one of these, what I call, neglected tropical diseases. And one of the interesting features about them is they're very debilitating. They not ... So they not only occur in the setting of poverty, but I think they reinforce poverty 'cause they make people too sick to go to work.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- PHPeter Hotez
They make, uh ... They actually sha- We can show they shave IQ points off of kids when they have them, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, this is the hookworm connection to-
- PHPeter Hotez
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the idea of the slack-jawed, dumb southerner, right?
- PHPeter Hotez
Right, right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
In the United States of America.
- PHPeter Hotez
Right, right. And now one of the things that we have found ... So Rogelio Mejia on my faculty, uh, working with an environmental activist named Catherine Coleman Flowers in Alabama found that hookworm is still present in Alabama.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PHPeter Hotez
It's among the poor, among the poor.
- JRJoe Rogan
Explain that to people so they, they understand what we're talking about because for the longest time, there was this stereotype about people that lived in the South, that they were dull minded-
- PHPeter Hotez
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and that this could be di- directly connected-... to hookworm infection, which had run rampant.
- PHPeter Hotez
Right. There was even the term given called, they called it the germ of laziness-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- PHPeter Hotez
That, that hookworm infection, because it causes severe anemia. So if you're walking around with terrible anemia, of course, you're, you're too... You're not feeling up to working a full day and, and all that sort of stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PHPeter Hotez
So hookworm was widely president- present in the Southeastern United States at the turn of the 20th century. And then as malaria went down with economic development, so, so did hookworm infection as well. But we still have pockets in this country.
- JRJoe Rogan
And this wasn't understood at the time, right? They didn't know that these people were infected with hookworm?
- PHPeter Hotez
Uh, n- for, for, for... forever, no, uh, up until very recently. So the cause of hookworm wasn't discovered till 1900.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is that cause?
- PHPeter Hotez
It's called Necator americanus, uh, the American killer is the... And that's the name of the worm. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
And this is from walking barefoot?
- PHPeter Hotez
Or that goes in through the hands or, you know, enters all parts of the body, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's very common to get it from walking barefoot-
- PHPeter Hotez
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... which was more common in the South.
- PHPeter Hotez
Right. Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Warm weather.
Episode duration: 1:51:11
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