Cardiologist Peter A. McCullough, MD, has made headlines once again after discussing COVID-19 at length for an episode of Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
McCullough has gained a significant amount of popularity during the pandemic by making media appearances on Fox News and other outlets. He championed early COVID-19 treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, for example, and has been a vocal opponent of how the U.S. government has handled the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. He has also spoken out against vaccine mandates and urged an entire country to shut down its vaccination programs.
During his Dec. 13 interview with Joe Rogan, which was nearly three hours long, McCullough said that he thinks there was “an intentional, very comprehensive suppression” of early COVID-19 treatments to “promote fear, suffering, isolation, hospitalization and death.” This deliberate strategy, he said, was put in place to push the general public to receive COVID-19 vaccines once they were made available.
He also claimed that as much as 85% of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented had early treatments been more thoroughly embraced by healthcare providers.
Fallout from McCullough's interview with Rogan
The podcast episode immediately earned rave reviews from listeners, especially those who were already skeptical of the government’s pandemic response. One popular media personality, Melissa Tate, was even permanently banned from Twitter after posting about the podcast and making the following post to her 493,700 followers: “GLOBAL BOMBSHELL: Dr. Peter McCullough on the Joe Rogan show says Moderna made the COVID vaccine long before COVID and that the pandemic was a premeditated and concerted scheme by government and medical entities to then force vaccinations as the solution.”
Twitter has said she was banned for “repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson also promoted the interview, saying Rogan “asks excellent questions” and McCullough “provides the answers.”
Snopes, meanwhile, has shared a thorough review of Tate’s Twitter ban and McCullough’s history of controversial comments. It includes links to the work of fact-checking websites such as PolitiFact and FactCheck.org.
McCullough was also in the news this year due to a legal dispute with his former employer, Baylor Scott & White Health. According to the lawsuit, McCullough allegedly misrepresented himself as a Baylor employee “dozens, if not hundreds, of times” after he stopped worked there. At the time, the cardiologist’s attorney described the lawsuit as a “politically motivated attempt to silence Dr. McCullough as he saves countless patient lives from COVID-19 and from ancillary actions related to COVID-19.”
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Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.