EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,079 words- 0:00 – 4:00
Jamie’s chocolate ritual, health claims, and cacao’s mood effects
- JMJamie Metzl
(drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Okay, cool. What's up, Jamie? Good to see you, man.
- JMJamie Metzl
Hey, Joe, nice to see you again.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for coming down here. Appreciate it.
- JMJamie Metzl
It's really my pleasure.
- JRJoe Rogan
And bringing your chocolate with you, again. (laughs)
- JMJamie Metzl
You know I always bring the chocolate, you gotta be ready.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Yeah, you're a, a legitimate chocolate fiend.
- JMJamie Metzl
I'm definitely a legitimate chocolate fiend.
- JRJoe Rogan
How much do you eat a day? How much chocolate do you eat a day?
- JMJamie Metzl
You know, I, I, every single morning I have hot chocolate and it takes about 45 minutes of preparation time, has about four different, uh, ingredients. So I start that and then I have some chocolate over the course of the day.
- JRJoe Rogan
45 minutes?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, a lot of it is simmering, so it's not really fully active, but, it's, it's some active and some passive intervention.
- JRJoe Rogan
So is this a preparation that you do, like, uh, is it, does it prepare you for the day? Is it like-
- JMJamie Metzl
It just-
- JRJoe Rogan
... a meditation thing?
- JMJamie Metzl
... it's, uh, you know, it's probably some kind of morning ritual, but it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JMJamie Metzl
... it's just, I don't know, it's very calming for me, and, uh, by the time, after this 45 minutes, it's like pudding. I mean it's like this thick, bubbling hot chocolate. It just, it brings me joy, I feel like everyone should start their day with joy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's some, like, positive qualities. And it's not just a good tasting thing, right? Like-
- JMJamie Metzl
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... chocolate, chocolate has some-
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, yeah, dark chocolate especially, has all kinds of very positive health benefits. I'm not saying that everyone should just eat chocolate bars all day and you're gonna live forever, but actually, the, the world, the woman who lived longest of everyone in recorded history ate two pounds of chocolate a week, Jeanne Calment in France. So, uh, at least, it's, it could help.
- JRJoe Rogan
Two pounds seems excessive, but-
- JMJamie Metzl
It's a lot, but she lived to 122.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, n- but chocolate's different in terms of like, some chocolate is like really sugar-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... sugar-based.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
And some chocolate is more of like, uh, kinda ... I really like dark chocolate-
- 4:00 – 7:40
Why COVID origin debates became taboo—and the new open letter
- JRJoe Rogan
So, you were a part of this, uh, open letter recently-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... about COVID-19.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where you want to get to the bottom of the origins of it. And, um, this is something we've talked about on the podcast before, and a lot of people have been talking about it lately-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... now that Trump's out of office, it's sort of freed up the discussion.
- JMJamie Metzl
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, for the longest time, discussing that in terms of like, it not being just some sort of a random mutation-
- JMJamie Metzl
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... from bats and coronaviruses-
- JMJamie Metzl
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that it may have been a lab leak-
- JMJamie Metzl
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... was so taboo because it was what Trump was pushing.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's, it's so crazy that something which is, uh, science, it's a, it's a, it's a scientific discussion, an inquiry, that it can be stunted by these political ideas. When someone is so polarizing, like Trump, that people just completely want to reject like very plausible and possible ideas just because of him.
- JMJamie Metzl
It's exactly right. I, I was the lead drafter, um, with a community of other, uh, of other people and lead scientists around the world, um, of this letter. And since the beginning of last year, 2020, I had maybe the leading website in the world that was just, um, stating what is the evidence about the origins of COVID-19, particularly the evidence for a lab leak. Um, and the evidence is actually really strong. It's all circumstantial evidence, um, but we don't have any evidence of the other hypotheses of where COVID comes from, like these, this, uh, series of jumps through different animals, uh, in the wild. And so I, for a long time, more than a year, have been saying, "Hey, we need to look really seriously at this." Not because we know, or certainly I don't know for sure that's where COVID comes from, but it, in my view, it's the most likely hypothesis worthy of a, of a full investigation. And so, uh, there was a, a World Health Organization or- uh, organized an independent advisory committee.And they went on a, a study mission, uh, to China, uh, in earlier this year, 2021. And then they came out with a r- uh, with a... th- they had a press event in Wuhan, which was a joint press event between this committee and their Chinese government counterparts. And in that press event, what they said was, um, "We're... we don't support investigating the possibility of a lab leak any further, um, but we should investigate what seems like a much less likely hypothesis, uh, that COVID started with frozen foods being, uh, shipped to Wuhan." And so we already had a community of scientists and others who'd been meeting virtually, um, for a while trying to say... to really say, "Where does this come from? What's the evidence?" Uh, we had academic presentations challenging the data, f- trying to figure out where are the gaps. And we looked at that and we said, "That, that can't be right." And we decided we needed to put out an open letter, which we, which we recently released, and it was covered in, in newspapers all around the world. And the letter, uh, made kind of key points. One is that this is a terrible pandemic. We have to understand where it came from. Two, that this, uh, current investigation is not the kind of full investigation that's needed. And three, here's what a full investigation looks like, and we call on, on governments to do it. But your point that it's been i- it's been taboo for the year is exactly right. And it's just crazy because it seems... this is a really, in my view, likely possibility. I can't say for sure. We should be investigating all hypotheses, not saying we can't even look at something that, that really, uh, could be the, the real story here.
- 7:40 – 10:36
WHO, Taiwan, and the problem of politics steering public-health institutions
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's also really unfortunate that a lot of people are not trusting anything that the World Health Organization says anymore, because-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the World Health Organization... I, I'm sure you saw the, uh, spokesperson for the World Health Organization speaking with a reporter, and he wouldn't even mention the name Taiwan. Did you see that?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, no. So it's... I did see that. And, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
He logs off and then comes back on.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then she asks him again about Taiwan's response to COVID-19, and he says, "Well, China's done an amazing job and let's just-"
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"... change subjects." And-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like, the woman keeps getting back to Taiwan and he won't recognize Taiwan because China doesn't recognize Taiwan.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
And China has some sort of strange... w- I don't know what it is, but there's some sort of political influence on the World Health Organization.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, so there's a lot there. So first, full disclosure, I'm a member of the World Health Organization International Advisory Committee on human-
- JRJoe Rogan
You were until this podcast. It's over.
- JMJamie Metzl
What's that?
- JRJoe Rogan
I said you were up until this podcast.
- JMJamie Metzl
Exactly (laughs) . Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're gonna cut you off.
- JMJamie Metzl
Bring it on. Um, uh, Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing. Um, and, um, so I'm actually a real supporter of the World Health Organization. But there's a big problem, and that problem is being realized, and, and we're seeing it through the course of this pandemic. So first, in the earliest days of the, uh, of the pandemic, why was it, um, that World Health Organization, uh, inspectors weren't able to go to Wuhan? And the reason was the Chinese government wouldn't give them visas, and there was nothing that WHO could do. Why was it that, um, the WHO was just essentially, unfortunately, parroting, uh, the reporting from the Chinese government in the earliest days? And, and part of that, at least, is because they don't even have the authority to have their own surveillance network. Why is it, referencing your point about Taiwan, that Taiwan has all kinds of expertise, um, in, uh, treating and responding to terrible outbreaks like this, which is why they've only had nine COVID deaths in Taiwan since the very beginning? Um, why is it that the WHO is in this weird position? It's in part because the WHO is created by these member states that have a lot of, of influence. And it's terrible, and we, we're all suffering because Taiwan didn't have a full voice. Tai- on December 31st, 2019, Taiwan declared a national emergency ba- on COVID. That was way before we did. I wish Taiwan had had a, a bigger voice. So WHO is in a really, really difficult position because on one hand, we're asking them to investigate and call out a member state. On the other hand, their governing body essentially is made up of member states, including China.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's... it's just so strange to see scientific inquiry and analysis pushed and, and manipulated by politics.
- 10:36 – 12:04
China’s early cover-up and why timing mattered for global spread
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, that's the whole story here.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know.
- JMJamie Metzl
I mean, that's, that's unfortunately the story of COVID, is that. I mean, it was politics that made it so that you could have a... this outbreak. And we can talk more about where the, the outbreak started. But wherever it started, whether it was a lab leak or, or something else, if you had had a fully functioning system, if it hadn't been Chinese politics and the national insti- the n- the national, uh, instinct or the natural instinct hadn't been to cover up, to silence-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
... the whistleblowers, to give... to lie essentially to the World Health Organization and the international community, it could well have been possible to suppress COVID in the first few weeks and we wouldn't be having any of this. So... and then it was politics that made China, again, whatever the origin, um, carry out this massive cover-up over the course of the last year where they destroyed samples, eliminated or removed databases, uh, imprisoned journalists, Chinese journalists asking tough questions, and put a universal gag order on their scientists, uh, making it impossible for them to speak about, about any of this stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's pretty incredible that that's not really well-known, that, that-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. I mean, I... I've... so for me, it's been more than a year and I have it on my Jamie Metzl website, and I've been trying to tell everybody not...... to point fingers, but to say like, "We have a real problem here. Unless we can just be really honest about what's the problem that we're facing, how are we possibly going to address it?"
- 12:04 – 16:32
Circumstantial case for lab leak: Wuhan geography, early cases, and a ‘ready-made’ virus
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, what is the circumstantial evidence?
- JMJamie Metzl
All right, so let me, let me start from the beginning-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- JMJamie Metzl
... um, of, of this. So, um, we know we have a long history of these pathogenic outbreaks, and they tend to happen, uh, in more tropical parts of, of China and Southeast Asia and, and just tropical, uh, parts of, of the world. So when SARS... when this outbreak began, um, uh, for me, I, I'd had a little bit of background. One of the reasons why I started to get suspicious very early on is I'd recently, before then, been in Wuhan and I knew w-... Wuhan wasn't a place where a bunch of yokels are eating bats. Wuhan is a really sophisticated city. It's their Chicago. Uh, and I knew that they didn't have horseshoe bats in Wuhan. As a matter of fact, when the outbreak happened, it was, uh, it was winter there, and so there weren't bats there. Um, and I knew early on that this whole story of the wet market, uh, was a lie, and as the Chinese government knew, and they for many, many months pushed that, uh, that story, um, even, uh, knowing it w- it wasn't true.
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd you know it was a lie?
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, bec- uh, the, uh, the Wuhan story?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
Because there was a, a paper that came out in The Lancet in January of 2020, and in that paper, it made clear, uh, that around a third of the first COVID cases had no exposure to the w- to that market. And so if everything started in the market, you would have expected all of the early cases to have had a, a, a market exposure. And so that was known... The- their government knew that in January, but they didn't admit it until May of last year.
- JRJoe Rogan
Was there a common denominator for all the people that were exposed or that- that did-
- JMJamie Metzl
Wh- that's, that's the big question. Now, so the, the... Finding patient... So-called Patient Zero, that's the essential, the essential question. If the lab leak hypothesis is true, then either Patient Zero, um, would be someone who works at one of the- these, uh, Chinese virology institutes, probably the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or, um, it would be someone who was exposed to a virus that had somehow escaped from that, whether it was through waste or in... maybe an animal escaped or, or, or something like that. If this... uh, the alternative story that many scientists believe and, and could also... could well be true, uh, that the Patient Zero, it comes from a series. There was animal-to-animal, what are called intermediate hosts. It started with a bat, and then went bat to a pangolin or whatever, and eventually to a human. Then you would find a patient zero somewhere that was that first human. But if... I mean, I think this is a really (laughs) important point. Um, if that's the case, you'd have to say, well, what are the chances that that patient zero from this series of animal-to-animal-to-human transmissions, it just happens to be it shows up in Wuhan, which is the only city in China with a level four virology institute, that has the world's largest collection of bat coronaviruses, that is doing gain-of-function research trying to make those viruses more virulent, particularly by making them, uh, more e- able to infect human cells? So it, it... In my mind, if you... if Patient Zero is just somebody who had an exposure to an animal, you have a... the mathematical odds of that person just showing up in, in Wuhan, um, would be actually kind of absurd.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's also an issue with the actual structure of the virus itself, right?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yes. Yeah. So, uh, well, this is a virus that is, um, ready-made for getting to humans. For the first SARS, we were able to track how it jumped. And you could see in, in retrospect how you could see it got closer and closer, and as it... as the, the virus mutated, it became more able, uh, to infect humans. This virus showed up fully able to infect humans. As in... uh, uh matter of fact, in the comparative studies of different animals, including humans, humans are the most susceptible to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. So somehow you have to explain how this virus shows up kind of seemingly out of nowhere in Wuhan, ready for action, ready to fully infect, uh, infect humans.
- 16:32 – 18:45
Gain-of-function research, U.S. funding links, and safety warnings
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, this level four virology lab, it's in Wuhan. What are they doing those studies for? Like-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... what is the, the intent?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, it's a really important question because there are a lot of people who are s- are saying things that I don't agree with that, "Oh, this is some kind of, uh-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Bioweapon, yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
"... military bioweapon." And, and say what you want about Chinese government, they're not stupid. Um, and so for them, I, I truly believe, if you had to ask me what's the most likely story, um, I believe that they've recognized that these kinds of, um, pathogens are a big threat to humans, and, uh, that we're getting more and more. The frequency of these kinds of outbreaks is growing, and rather than being behind the curve and waiting for, uh, for some terrible outbreak, the idea was, well, can we predict how these viruses will evolve? Um, can we get ahead of the game in developing treatments and vaccines for what we think may be coming? And that's what this, this gain-of-function research is about. And so we know, um, that the Chinese government... uh, the, the... I'm sorry, the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing this kind of gain-of-function research. Some of it is actually funded, um, with United States government money through the NIH, and I know you'll get a lot of action in the Twittersphere on, on this, but... Um, so we know, and I, and I tr- truly believe that there was w-... well-intentioned work trying to develop vaccines and treatments, trying to understand how the most dangerous pathogens might, uh, might develop. And if my hypothesis, uh, is, is true, I think that's... there was an accident. And there's a whole history of people who were warning, saying, "Well, we're trying to, um, prevent some kind of future threat, but in our effort to prevent it, we're actually increasing the likelihood of it happening."
- JRJoe Rogan
Wasn't that lab cited in 2018 for safety violations as well?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yes. Yeah, so the US Embassy, uh, sent a, a, a small delegation. They visited the lab, uh, and then there was, there were two cables about this saying, "Hey, this is really dangerous. They're doing experimentation with these dangerous coronaviruses, um, and their safety protocols aren't up to snuff." So there was a lot of warning and a lot of fear.
- 18:45 – 34:29
How scientific consensus was shaped: letters, conflicts, and reputational risk
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh. Um, ha- have any of the people that were initially skeptical or pushing back against the idea that it came from this level four lab, are they coming around or are they still-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... digging their heels in?
- JMJamie Metzl
So some are, are, are coming around. And, um, so certainly there are people like, uh, like Matt Ridley, who's a member of the House of Lords in the, in the UK, a, a kind of very well-known science communicator, he was firmly on the other side, and now he's started to be more open and actually has been quite, uh, quite vocal.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was his motivation for being on the other side? Did he-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, I think that in the beg- there, uh, it's a really interesting story because in the earliest days of the pandemic, there was a concerted effort by a relatively small number of high profile, uh, scientists, virologists, who recognized, um, that if the story was that this came from a series of what are called zoonotic jumps between animal hosts in, in the wild, that was going to lead to kind of a positive outcome where we'd say, "Hey, let's be very mindful of our encroachment into wild spaces, climate change, all those things that we should be very mindful of." But they were, I think, probably worried, um, that if this story became dominant of an accidental lab leak, I mean, that would have huge im- implications for all of the research that people are doing, and, and a lot of it is, is very well intentioned. So early last year, um, there was a process where a series of, uh, of scientists did two things. One, they came out with a letter in the, in the British, uh, medical journal, The Lancet, which we've subsequently learned was highly manipulated by a small number of people who may have had vested interests, and there was a, a academic paper in a journal called Nature Communications, and both made the case, "Oh, this isn't a lab leak." And then there was a concerted effort to label anybody else as a conspiracy theorist. And so I, I kind of spent last year in that uncomfortable space. I mean, I'm, I, I don't live my life as a conspiracy theorist. I try to be data-driven in everything that I do, but I really felt (clears throat) that this was a very real possibility and it deserved a full investigation. And it was only in the beginning of this year, uh, 2021, that that started to turn. I know I had... Uh, I wrote some things, uh, uh, someone named Nick- Nicholson Baker, he had a great piece in New York Magazine. Um, the Wall Street Journal did a great job, um, covering this. And so the s- the space was starting to, to open up. Then they had that, really, in my mind, ill-fated press event in Wuhan where it was this independent committee and the Chinese government, and they said, "Don't investigate lab leak, investigate the frozen food hypothesis." And then in every newspaper around the world, the headline was, "World Health Organization," um, "says, uh, don't... lab leak is not, is not possible," essentially. And so I immediately sent messages to my, my friends, uh, at the World Health Organization and saying, "Look, you're... this is being misreported. The World Health Organization hasn't said this. Uh, and, uh, it... the, the position of the WHO must be, we have to investigate all hypotheses." And I was very pleased that three days later, so the press event was on a Tuesday, that Friday, uh, Tedros Adhanom, who's the director-general, he then, uh, said in a press event that, "We believe that every hypothesis needs to be investigated," which implicitly meant the lab leak hypothesis. And then our letter, uh, came out, uh, which was just, uh, just last week. I mean, it, it feels... uh, it's been such a whirlwind since then, and that's been picked up in newspapers all around the world. So now I feel like there is an opening and I hope that we can continue. And the goal, in my mind, isn't to prove. Like I don't, I don't feel like I need to... I mean, if it's provable, I'd love to prove it, but the... is not to prove that, right at this point, that it is a lab leak or isn't. But we at least need to have the most thorough, unrestricted, unpoliticized investigation into what happened with access to all the lab records, all the samples. There, there's tons of scientists in China who were working on these issues. Very, very few of them have been interviewed. We don't have access to them. And frankly, I think a lot of them are afraid that if they speak up, uh, they'll be imprisoned or worse.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that is the problem, right? The, the people that were initially very vocal, um, and, uh, biased towards the idea that it wasn't a lab leak, and you said they were highly motivated and they-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they labeled all the folks a conspiracy theorist. What, what was motivating them?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. So this... it's a really tricky point. And, and so there's been a lot of controversy, uh, g- uh, around a guy named Peter Daszak. And Peter is an interesting figure because if you had asked me, uh, a year ago, a year and a half ago, "Who are the people who you respect most in the field of virology?" He would be really at the top of my list. He was one of the heroes of understanding where the first SARS came from. He has a, an organization called EcoHealth Alliance that was really trying to get a- ahead of the curve on understanding these, uh, these pathogens. But he also, through EcoHealth Alliance, was a funder of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, specifically the gain-of-function research that was being done there. And I, I, and I truly believe it wasn't anything nefarious. It was... the idea was, well, if we're, if we want to understand dangerous pathogens, we have to do it-... in the place where those dangerous pathogens are. Then under the Obama administration, there was a moratorium on this kind of- of- of gain of function research. Um, and then it was lifted in the Trump administration. So, that's one- one piece of it. And so for Peter, I understand that his whole experience of his life has been, "Well, this is where these kinds of outbreaks come from." Um, and- but this could be just a very different story. And- and for me personally, that's- I think one of the reasons why I was able to see this a little earlier perhaps than other people, is that, you know, part of- a big chunk of my life has been in the world of science, but another big chunk of my life has been in the world of understanding China. And so I think if you're just in the world of science, you don't understand China, you think, "Well, the Chinese government says that this isn't from a lab leak. It must not be from a lab leak." But I know they did... The Chinese government, they've totally suppressed the entire basically history of Mao and all the pe- millions of people who died under Mao. When they got their speed trains, uh, going, the first train had this terrible crash, and they just buried the whole train and- and pretended like it- it never happened until there was an outcry and they had to- they had to- to dig it up. So, I- I feel like I understood a little bit more about the pathology of the- uh, of the Chinese government. So, but coming back, I think there were people in the kind of more traditional virology world who felt like we're gonna open up a whole can of worms if we say, "Well, maybe it was a zoonotic jump and maybe it was- it was a lab leak."
- JRJoe Rogan
So, this one guy and his influence shaped the way the entire world was addressing this outbreak?
- JMJamie Metzl
I wouldn't say it's one guy, but it was, I think, a relatively small number of people, um, because they certainly... That- the, uh, The Lancet letter, and it was all kinds of big luminaries who signed it, that really shaped things. Um, and so definitely if- if the story in the beginning had been maybe this comes from a zoonotic jump, maybe it comes from a lab leak, we need to look at both options, or, um... I think that would have been a much healthier place because there would have been more pressure on China. So, it wasn't just one guy, but Peter certainly was- was very influential. And then in spite of this, uh, conflict of interest, he's actually was selected as a member of this World Health Organization Independent Advisory Committee. So, one of the- the people who went on this mission to China was Peter. He also, uh, is the chairman of The Lancet, the same, uh, British journal that I mentioned. They have a- a study- uh, study group. He's the chairman of that. And I'm not saying he's doing anything wrong, I'm just saying if you have that kind of conflict of interest, you shouldn't be in those kinds of roles.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just always so disturbing to someone like me who's a non-scientist, who relies on scientists to be unbiased and to just look at the data, when you find out that things are being influenced by very human factors, like ego-
- JMJamie Metzl
(clears throat)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... financial gain and relationships with foreign powers and laboratories that they're involved with.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that scares the shit out of me.
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, you know this better than most anybody, Joe, because you kind of are here every day looking into people's psyche, and people are people, even- even scientists. And everybody in the world has a story that explains what they're doing and, uh- and why. And so I'm sure that you could, maybe even should, have Peter on the show and he'll give you his- his story. But at least from the outside looking in, the way I would see it is, well, he's- he's invested his entire life into doing the right thing, trying to protect us from this terrible threat of a pathogenic outbreak. He correctly recognizes that encroachment into wild areas and climate change are big threats. Wherever- wherever COVID, uh, 2, however COVID-19 SARS 2 comes from, still those are- are- are good things to do. He has a longstanding relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a friendship with the people who, uh, who- who work there. Um, and so you- you can see how we ki- he, um... My guess, and, you know, I can't speak for him, he's become kind of a stakeholder in this story. But, I- we shouldn't... This isn't just about Peter. I mean, there are lots of very prominent scientists. I would say there are more prominent scientists who believe that this comes from a series of zoonotic, uh, jumps through intermediate animal hosts in the wild than there are, uh, who believe that it's more likely to come from a lab leak. But what I will say, I get a lot... I'm in touch with lots of people who are world-famous scientists, scientists who many, many people will know, who are privately telling me, "We think that there's a 90% chance that it comes from a lab, but really don't want to speak up because we don't want to get pulled into the muck."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
You were talking about Trump before. People remember the Iraq war where there were all kinds of experts who were saying, "Oh, they definitely have nuclear weapons," and then invaded the country. It's like, "Oh, oops, they don't have it." So, people didn't want to justify any kind of bad things. And as scientists, I mean, the problem is the- the scientists rely on data, and there wasn't data because China was- was covering it up. And the- the- the journalists require scientists to make, to legitimate claims about the origins. And so there was this weird thing that's- that's lasted for a year, and our hope is, and we're starting to see that our letter, um, has opened up some space where we can have a real honest conversation about let's- let's look deeply into all the possibilities and try to get to the right answer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it has started to be discussed mainstream, like Newsweek had the cover-
- JMJamie Metzl
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where it talked about the lab leak hypothesis, and people are talking about it more often. Uh, Bret Weinstein, who was very vocal about it very early on.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And Heather Heying were just on Bill Maher talking about-
- JMJamie Metzl
I loved it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
It- it was great. I mean, I thought that was a fantastic interview, and that's why I'm so happy to be here with you, Joe, because, you know, it's one thing where people have, like, a gut feeling, like, "Oh, I don't trust China. I feel it was a- a- a lab leak," or, "I've- I want to protect the environment. I feel like, well, this is the kind of thing of nature fighting back." And we don't know, but we have to- we have to follow the data and- and be fearless in- in asking tough questions.
- 34:29 – 53:14
What a real origins investigation would require—and why it may not happen
- JRJoe Rogan
Y- I, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Now, moving forward from, from here out, what, what do you think needs to be done in terms of, uh, opening up, uh, inquiry, b- b- being able to s- c- completely figure out the origins of this virus, and, uh, what could be done to sort of influence the people that are still either on the fence-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... or on the other side?
- JMJamie Metzl
So, the, the next step is going to be when this joint committee that I mentioned, made up of the Independent Advisory Committee to the World Health Organization and their Chinese government counterparts, they are going to be issuing their preliminary report within a couple of weeks. Uh, I, as I've said very publicly, I hope that the report is much better than just the, the really just atrocious press event that they, that they had on, on February 9th. In the best case scenario, they'll say, just exactly like, like we did in our, uh, in our open letter, um, that one, this wasn't a full investigation. I mean, they essentially had four weeks on the ground in Wuhan, two weeks in quarantine, and two weeks a fully chaperoned, highly curtailed study tour. But if they were to say, "Here is what a full and unrestricted international forensic investigation into the origins of the pandemic with full access to all samples, records, and personnel would look like," that would be a start. But they're in a real bind, because it's g- it's going to be a joint report. If they say what needs to be said, just in total honesty and fearlessness, this is the full investigation, examining all hypotheses, including the possibility of a lab leak, it's very likely the Chinese government isn't gonna, going to sign off on that letter, on that, on that report. But if they do another compromise, like they tried to do in the February 9 press event in Wuhan, where they try to, you know, s- harrow out some tidbits, have a little more information, but not too much upset their, their Chinese counterparts, then the, that process is going to be delegitimated. So, I, I don't know how they're going to, to get out of that bind, but I certainly hope that they're honest. But let's just say hypothetically for now that they're honest. The Chinese government is unlikely, um, to say, "Oh, oh, sorry about that. We've been doing this, (laughs) this full cover-up for a year. We've destroyed the samples-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JMJamie Metzl
... eliminated the records, imprisoned the journalists, um, uh, gagged the scientists. Are bad, just come in and, and, and, and do what you want." So, then we can say, "Well, what are the next options?" We can try to negotiate the terms for a new investigation, maybe with different skill sets of people. You still run into the China problem. You could try to go to the United Nations for a stronger mandate. You still (laughs) run into the, the China problem. So, I don't, uh, to tell you the truth-I don't know whether we're going to be able to have the full investigation that we need to get to the bottom of this. But at very least, we should articulate what that is. And if China wants to tell the rest of the world essentially, "Screw you. We have millions of people dead from this totally avoidable pandemic, um, the future of our species depends on understanding where it comes from, but we don't, uh, but we don't want you to, to look at deeply at, at what happened," at least, at very least, there should be a political cost for that. But at most, we'll get as much information as we possibly can.
- JRJoe Rogan
Y- the... I was reading that if China had been honest about it from the beginning and, and let everybody know about the pandemic, like, the moment they knew about it, it wou- would have saved 95% of the lives.
- JMJamie Metzl
I truly believe that. I mean, and, and it could be even more. It could be less, but I, I really think it, it could be more because these, these viruses... I mean, you talked about Patient Zero. So there was one person who had, who had this. Then it became two, and then... I mean, that's what exponential growth, viral... It's what we call viral growth. Um, so but if the earlier you intervene, the greater the possibility to stop it. And this is certainly, certainly a highly contagious virus, um, but in those early critical days... I mean, China, they silenced the whistleblowers. They started destroying the materials. They didn't share that immediately. Even the, the, uh, the genomic sequence of the virus... I mean, really for the first month, China was absolutely atrocious and, and, and there's a percentage. Not the full percentage, but every single person who dies from COVID, part of that is attributable to the failure of the Chinese government, particularly in the first month. There's other parts of it that are attributable to the massive failures that we had here in the United States and elsewhere.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's such a fascinating country, you know, because they, they have this weird mix of the, the government and business. They're intertwined inexorably, right? And they have influence over the media. They have a full lockdown on the internet. And if anybody promotes anything that's negative about the Chinese government, whether it's bloggers or-
- JMJamie Metzl
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... journalists-
- JMJamie Metzl
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they just arrest them and make them vanish.
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, so what I would say is, it's the Chinese government. Even business is-
- JRJoe Rogan
The Chinese government.
- JMJamie Metzl
... subject to, to the, the Chinese government. And there's a... It's an authoritarian system, and that's an... It's... We've experienced authoritarian systems before. The Soviet Union was one. But never one as sophisticated as these guys. And it's not like... You know, I traveled in, in former Eastern Europe in the old days. I've... We talked about it last time I was on the show. I've, you know, I've traveled all through North Korea. And there's one thing when you go to an authoritarian, or in this case, a totalitarian system, when it's totally dysfunctional, and you see that when you see people pulling plows on their backs in North Korea. It's another thing to go to a place like China where there's an... It's an incredible level of sophistication. I mean, they're... One of the reasons why we're, we're even having this conversation is their level of scientific acumen in artificial intelligence and genomics is... It's incredible. Um, but they have a, a real level of control, and if you stay out of politics, there's a lot they, that you can do, but that's why I am certain that there are many people in China right now who have lots of highly relevant information that could tell us a lot about the origins of the pandemic. Those people don't dare speak because they know, that if they do, the cost to them and maybe even their families would be extremely high.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, a lot of people that broke stories about it initially have vanished.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yes. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is really... That's so spooky.
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, it's so sp- it's spooky for them and it's spooky for us. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
... our... One of the things that this virus has shown us, if we didn't already know, is that all of our fates as humans are connected. And so, you know, a virus that starts somewhere and spreads, it affects all of us. So our fate is dependent, in this and in many other ways, on the behavior of, of governments like China's. And so when they have these kinds of, of, you know, terrible catastrophes... I don't even wanna call it a breakdown because maybe the, the, the government was working as designed to prevent the, the, the Communist Party from losing face. Then it affects all of us. And so this idea that, "Well, what happens in your country is your business," it doesn't really make sense when we're talking about, about highly contagious viruses and lots of other things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Lots of other things. Um, I, I wanna talk about... If, if we're... Is there anything else you wanna say about coronaviruses or about...
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. No. Just, just... I encourage... I mean, I have a very strong view, um, that... Not just that I, I think lab leak hyp- hypothesis is the most likely, um, but that what we need is a full and unrestricted international forensic investigation into all of this. But I would certainly encourage your listeners not to take my word for it, but to really read the evidence. And that's why on my, on my website, on jamiemetzel.com, I just laid out the evidence. I have lots of links. And I, I would encourage people just to go there and look and read and, and disagree. I mean, I think we have to, we have to have a space for the conversation. I think that's the key point.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it should be data-driven. It shouldn't be political.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I'm hoping that it can be now. Now that Trump's out of office, it seems l- like... I personally feel like the country's more relaxed.
- JMJamie Metzl
Oh my God. It's so relaxed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- JMJamie Metzl
It's like... Well, the... I think the thing is, everybody wakes up, and then you... The first thought is, "Huh, I wonder what I'm gonna have for breakfast." It's not taking out the phone, it's like, "Oh-"
- 53:14 – 59:02
Vaccines, mRNA platforms, and the ‘future crashing into the present’
- JRJoe Rogan
And has China offered any, uh, information about how to combat the virus? Have they-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... contributed to the development of the mRNA viruses-
- JMJamie Metzl
So, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
... or vaccines or anything?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. So, well, first, in terms of a public health response, I, I mentioned that China was absolutely atrocious, particularly in the first month or two of the virus. They also mounted the most aggressive and, in many ways, highly successful response, public health response, to containing it. And so certainly China has been helpful in sharing the lessons. I mean, not everybody has that kind of authoritarian system, but in, when there's a story that helps China, China has, has been more helpful. And now even with the, this idea of, well, where does the, uh, where does the virus come from, if, so China has been very aggressive trying to look for animal hosts. They haven't found any. There's no evidence of it. They've been even more aggressive with this, in my view, somewhat nutty, but maybe worthy of exploration idea, uh, that it came from frozen foods shipped from someplace else. I mean, there's no, absolutely no evidence that that's the case. Um, but not helpful with this, and certainly not helpful with providing access to the scientists who've been studying, just to your point, who've been studying this for years. I mean, the access to those people has mostly vanished.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they didn't really contribute to treatments. They basically figured out a way to lock people in their homes and, and isolate-
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
They had more power-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... over the population in terms of, like, stopping their movement.
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, but in treatments, they also have put... So they, they have their own vaccine. Uh, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
When did they develop their vaccine?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, they, they actually developed it a little faster than ours. It's, but it had a, when the, when the first tests, uh, came back, it only had about a 50% efficacy rate. So it was a bad vaccine, but they had the first vaccine. They're now, uh, try- working to develop an mRNA vaccine, like the Pfizer and, and Moderna.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was their vaccine?
- JMJamie Metzl
Their vaccine was a, uh, it was-
- JRJoe Rogan
An inert...
- JMJamie Metzl
... it was in, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
It was an attenuated virus vaccine.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, but it wasn't very effective.
- JMJamie Metzl
It wasn't very effective.
- JRJoe Rogan
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is quite a bit less effective-
- JMJamie Metzl
It's, yes. Yeah, and that's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
... but it's one shot, right?
- JMJamie Metzl
Yes. And then so that one, uh, it's called a Trojan horse vaccine, and basically you get a virus, um, that is a, uh, basically a non-harmful virus. You kind of neutralize it by taking out its kind of delivery package and then put the gene that's delivered through that other virus into the body. Whereas the mRNA vaccine, what that's doing, it's hijacking the machinery of your cells-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
... and saying, "Hey, hey, cells, rat," here's like the, the mRNA is the messenger, messenger RNA. If we kind of hijack and say, "Here's a new message," and we say, "The message is, cells make this spike protein," which is something, it's not, uh, it's not part of normal human body, but we, we make this little protein and then our body says, our immunological system says, "Hey, this is an alien thing," and it mounts a response, and that's what gives us our immunity.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the, the, the problem that I'm reading about the Johnson & Johnson virus is there's, there's religious opposition to it.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, exactly.
- 59:02 – 1:03:03
China ‘manliness’ campaign as a gateway to genetic engineering ethics
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, let's talk about, uh, I wanna, I wanna talk because we, we got into a little bit about China and genetics. And I, there was an article that I read recently, uh, where they were, uh, there was some sort of a program to try to make, uh, Chinese men more manly, that the government was instituting some sort of a program. And I read that and I... See if you can find it because it was a weird article. They were like doing these like manly exercises and shit.
- JMJamie Metzl
Like what are, what are manly exercises?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a good question.
- JMJamie Metzl
Right. Maybe we should-
- JRJoe Rogan
I guess aggressive weight lifting or something.
- JMJamie Metzl
Oh, all right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Something along those lines. But, uh, the real ethical dilemma, and this is your area of expertise, right, in, in terms of, um, genetic engineering. The ethical, there's, there's mu- many ethical dilemmas, right? One of them is the haves and the have-nots.
- JMJamie Metzl
Mm-hmm. Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the big one to me. It's like if really, really wealthy people can figure out how to genetically manipulate their children and their bodies before it's available to anyone else, they'll have such a massive advantage that the gaps between the haves and the have-nots will, will grow ever wider.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that, that's a real possibility.
- JRJoe Rogan
Here it is. China promotes education, education drive-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... to make boys more manly.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you see these boys-
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... what are they doing there?
- JMJamie Metzl
Let's see. I don't know if that, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Punching sand?
- JMJamie Metzl
Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, I don't think that has anything to do with genetics.
- JRJoe Rogan
Press send?
- JMJamie Metzl
But it seems like whatever they're doing...
- JRJoe Rogan
They're flexing.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That guy's, the middle guy's got some good chest muscles.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What does it say here? Uh, while, Chinese government, what does it say?
- JMJamie Metzl
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, promote, oh, the pro- proposal to prevent the feminization of male adolescents.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. I guess they don't want Chinese men to become too metro.
- 1:03:03 – 1:30:22
CRISPR babies: what happened, why it was unethical, and what comes next
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, yeah. So, uh, it's really an, an incredible story. If you don't mind, I'll just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Please.
- JMJamie Metzl
... go back a little bit. Um, so last year, 2020, the Nobel Prize in chemistry went to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, who are scientists who, who developed the tool that you just mentioned called CRISPR. In 2012, they had their famous paper came out, which was essentially describing a basic science tool, something that you would do in a lab. Six years later, in 2018, the world's first three genetically modified CRISPR babies were born in China as a result of highly, in my view, unethical human experimentation by a, a Chinese biophysicist named He Jiankui. As a matter of fact, the World Health Organization committee on which I serve was created in the aftermath of that. So, what He Jiankui was doing and trying to do was to change one gene to try to give these two, and then it became three, kids a greater resistance to HIV later in the life, in life. It doesn't look like he, he, uh, he succeeded. But we've entered the era of genetically modified humans, and it's just in this little way. And, and more broadly, we're entering this, this period where our species has the increasing ability to read, write, and hack the code of life.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wasn't there some sort of, uh... Because they were trying to give them resistance to HIV, didn't it impart some sort of cognitive benefit?
- JMJamie Metzl
Well, there were, there were stories that it may have from some experiments, um, that were done in mice, and there was some analysis that was later partly debunked from the UK Biobank that, that had suggested that. But the, excuse me, the short answer is nobody really knows. And, and that was why it was so unethical to do these human experimentations because the outcomes were, were so unknown. Having said that, even though this was a terrible first step, it's my absolute expectation that in the future, and whether that future is 10 years from now or 20 years from now, or five years from now or 50 years from now, um, we will begin a process of genetic modification of humans that will start very small. It will certainly start, uh, with making single, uh, changing single mutations that would otherwise condemn a child to die of a terrible, deadly genetic disorder.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
That, that will be the starting point. But over time, as we increasingly understand the complexity, not just of the human genome, but of systems biology more broadly, we will move from that smaller bit of, uh, of engineering to bigger. We'll also use tools of embryo selection. Right now, an average woman, uh, going through IVF has about 15 eggs extracted. Um, let's say you have 10 viable, uh, pre-implanted embryos in in vitro fertilization. So now you can screen each one of those 10 embryos and you can rank order them roughly, uh, in, in tallest, likely tallest to likely shortest in a small number of years, likely highest genetic component to likely lowest genetic component of IQ. I mean, this is all highly, highly controversial stuff, but this is where we're going. So I do think that it will be possible that we'll have embryo selection and then very likely we'll be able to use stem cell technology called induced pluripotent stem cells to turn adult cells into stem cells. So just to make it practical, like let's say, um, a woman has a skin graft and there's millions of skin cells. You induce those skin cells into stem cells, stem cells into egg precursor cells, egg precursor cells into eggs. Now let's say you have 10,000 eggs and average male ejaculation has hundreds of millions or sometimes low billions of sperm. You fertilize those 10,000 eggs, use high throughput screening to extract a few cells and sequence them from each, and now you have 10,000 options. And then you have real possibilities and you don't even need to use genome editing. Our ancestors took chickens laying one egg a month and turned them into chickens laying one egg a day, not knowing anything about genetics, but just through this kind of selection. And what does it mean for humans, for agriculture, for so many other things when we are the drivers of that evolutionary process?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's where people get really uncomfortable, right? Because now we're entering into what many people would consider eugenics.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? You're, you're, you're, you're engineering the human race for the most favorable outcomes, and maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but-... sometimes less favorable outcomes create a different strength.
- JMJamie Metzl
Oh, abs- I think th- that sh- is such a wise point, and it's essential 'cause you talked earlier about equity as being one of the issues. But an- an equally big issue is, is your point, diversity. And so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
... if you gave everybody a choice, well, what kind of kid would you want? Maybe everyone would say, "I want-"
- JRJoe Rogan
The Rock.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, (laughs) exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I want my kid to look like The Rock.
- JMJamie Metzl
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Everybody would say that.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. No, I want The Rock, who, with the, with the mind of Einstein, and- and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JMJamie Metzl
... and, and whatever. And, and it's not wrong. It's just within the context of our society, those seem like good ideas. Just like if you were a dinosaur, and someone asked a T-rex, "What kinda kid do you want?" The T-rex is like, "F yeah, I want a kid."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JMJamie Metzl
"I want a big tail. I want sharp fangs."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JMJamie Metzl
And, but then, the astro-
- JRJoe Rogan
And longer arms.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah. (laughs) The asteroid hits, and being a cockroach was actually the right answer. And so, we-
- JRJoe Rogan
Or being a crocodile.
- JMJamie Metzl
Yeah, exactly. So, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
A lotta rotten meat.
Episode duration: 2:51:26
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