#2576 - Dr. Peter McCullough

Rogan opens by telling Peter McCullough that McCullough—or Robert Malone—was probably responsible for the first major campaign against him, after Rogan discussed COVID on the podcast. He recalls the White House press secretary demanding that Spotify censor him, calls from the president’s administration to Spotify and his management, and the oddity that claims labeled “misinformation” later proved accurate. McCullough says “misinformation” was scarcely present in medical literature before 2020, became a formal National Library of Medicine subject term by 2021, and had long functioned as a propaganda weapon because accusing an opponent of it creates instant moral superiority. They agree that officials and media figures who were wrong about COVID never apologized.

McCullough says COVID was treated legally and rhetorically like a war: statutes such as the BioShield and PREP Acts referred to government “countermeasures,” while manufacturers received liability protection. Doctors and nurses, however, became the “foot soldiers” responsible for treating patients even though the CDC, FDA, and HHS treated none. Rogan asks whether this was the first time doctors were punished for helping patients with hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. McCullough answers that doctors in France, Australia, and elsewhere rapidly faced license threats, while the FTC pursued Clear, a company studying nasal sprays and gargles, and Vitamin D researcher Eric Nepute. He says policy violations became mechanisms for professional reprisal.

Asked how countries adopted nearly identical restrictions, McCullough describes what he calls the “biopharmaceutical complex.” In his account, the WHO, World Economic Forum, Gates Foundation, Rockefeller and Wellcome trusts, Gavi, CEPI, Unitaid, and national regulators gradually aligned through WHO-linked communication channels. He points to the WHO’s 2019 “A World at Risk” report, which listed a SARS pandemic as a threat and included Anthony Fauci and Jeremy Farrar among prominent participants. McCullough says pharmaceutical companies were only suppliers; testing, protective equipment, delivery, and other industries also benefited. He highlights CEPI’s 2017 business plan, which anticipated repeated pandemics and identified mass vaccination as the standard response.

McCullough traces Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel’s career from BioMérieux to Moderna and says BioMérieux had a contract helping build a biosafety facility at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and train Chinese staff. He says Moderna held a 2016 patent involving part of the COVID virus, communicated with Ralph Baric before the pandemic about testing vaccines against his viruses, and co-owned its vaccine patent with NIH. Rogan asks whether the virus was deliberately released; McCullough says he thinks it escaped accidentally through inadequate safety protocols. Rogan recalls visiting the Galveston high-containment lab while filming a biowarfare program and says a serious outbreak there would make the laboratory an obvious place to investigate.

McCullough says Peter Daszak coordinated work between Fauci, Baric, and Wuhan and then joined the WHO’s origin investigation, despite his involvement in the research under examination. He calls the “natural origins” paper published in Nature a cover-up and says other papers supporting a laboratory origin remain unretracted. Rogan describes Australia’s five-kilometer movement rule and outdoor mask requirements as examples of rules that ignored how respiratory viruses spread. They discuss a Massachusetts lesbian bar that provoked threats after making one night mask-optional; Rogan presents the masks as a political symbol. McCullough defines “malinformation” as factual information that authorities believe could cause harm, alongside labels such as anti-science, anti-vaxxer, and conspiracy theorist.

McCullough argues that science should not operate by enforced consensus, especially in clinical medicine, where doctors use inference and revise conclusions as evidence accumulates. He cites chocolate and coffee studies that repeatedly reverse direction as examples. He and Rogan discuss Matthias Desmet’s “mass formation” theory: fear, ambiguity, and a single mandated solution split communities and make dissent appear immoral. McCullough’s book traces vaccine ideology to Cotton Mather and smallpox variolation in 1721 Boston. Mather called the procedure a gift from God; Benjamin Franklin initially mocked it, then supported it after his son died of smallpox. McCullough says money, fear, power, and the belief that vaccinology improves on God produced modern vaccine religious zeal, symbolized by a 2022 Vatican coin depicting vaccination in place of communion.

McCullough challenges the claim that vaccination alone produced modern public-health gains. He says sanitation, hygiene, nutrition, testing, and antibiotics controlled many diseases before widespread vaccination, citing his family’s deaths from post-streptococcal kidney and heart disease and the later disappearance of such fatalities through antibiotics. He links measles severity to vitamin A deficiency and cites a randomized New England Journal of Medicine trial in which vitamin A reduced mortality among critically ill children. He says natural measles immunity provided 96% protection in one Italian study, compared with measurable vaccine protection in only 80%; he personally received four measles shots after tests repeatedly showed no antibodies. He also describes a Mennonite doctor who contracted measles despite four vaccinations.

McCullough says monoclonal antibodies were safe, effective, and purchased through Operation Warp Speed in quantities intended for everyone, yet only about 15% of hospitalized COVID patients received them. He recounts a husband and wife who went to the same emergency room: she received antibodies and went home, while he was admitted without them and died. He says hospitals withheld them because trials studied outpatients, while he used clinical judgment to insist that high-risk patients receive them. Rogan describes paying private nurses to treat acquaintances and strangers around the country, including with monoclonal antibodies, until access became difficult. McCullough calls the restriction part of an effort to prevent treatment options from undermining vaccine uptake.

McCullough cites the ICON study, which he says found more than a 50% mortality reduction when hospitalized patients received ivermectin, and says the AMA nevertheless adopted a policy seeking to abolish its use. He recalls misleading coverage portraying ivermectin users as taking veterinary dewormer, including a Rolling Stone story whose photograph allegedly showed people waiting for flu shots. He says FDA messaging was later removed after lawsuits by doctors challenging false claims. By contrast, he criticizes remdesivir: the WHO and European critical-care specialists advised against it because it lacked benefit and caused kidney and liver toxicity, yet U.S. hospitals made it standard. McCullough says some of his patients’ liver markers rose sharply during its five-day course.

McCullough says COVID vaccine trials excluded pregnant women and women of childbearing potential, yet about 3,000 pregnant American women—many nurses—received vaccines during the first week of rollout, after which professional groups recommended vaccination during pregnancy without completed safety data. He cites obstetrician James Thorp and CDC-linked data that, in his interpretation, suggested elevated miscarriage and stillbirth risks, while acknowledging the CDC said it could not determine the true rate. He says pregnancy-safe alternatives included hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, and supportive treatment. Rogan recalls refusing vaccination after people he knew suffered strokes or required pacemakers, and says prior infection was reportedly more protective than vaccination. Both describe mandates as a demand to join a team rather than a response to settled evidence.

McCullough attributes myocarditis, blood clots, cardiac arrest, and neurological illness to COVID vaccines, distinguishing the adenoviral Janssen and AstraZeneca products as especially thrombogenic and citing vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia. He says a study of European soccer players under 35 found a tenfold rise in cardiac events after vaccination, and discusses Christian Eriksen, DeMar Hamlin, USC basketball player Vince Iwuchukwu, and athletes who required defibrillators. He claims a treatment approach using nattokinase, bromelain, curcumin, and colchicine can clear spike protein and prevent some permanent cardiac-device needs. The Wellness Company sells this as “Ultimate Spike Detox.” Rogan recalls Aaron Rodgers, Novak Djokovic, Kyrie Irving, and Eric Clapton facing public punishment or severe reactions after declining or criticizing vaccination.

McCullough says PCR testing amplified COVID fear because laboratories sometimes ran 40–45 cycles, despite CDC guidance warning that results above 25 cycles could create false positives. He cites employee-screening data suggesting that among asymptomatic people who tested positive, roughly 80% were false positives. He also says the CDC counted anyone who had ever tested positive and later died as a COVID death, even when another cause was apparent; Rogan recalls claims that shark-attack victims could be classified this way. McCullough argues that hospitals had financial incentives to diagnose and treat COVID: it became the leading reimbursed hospitalization, while influenza testing declined. He says remdesivir was sometimes administered to patients whose positive results may not have represented active COVID.

McCullough says COVID vaccines may promote cancer through several mechanisms, including interference with DNA repair and tumor suppressors such as p53 and BRCA. He cites papers proposing a “multi-hit” mechanism and says 66 peer-reviewed papers have linked infection or vaccination with cancer risk, while criticizing Time and cancer centers for exploring cell phones and microplastics without discussing vaccination. He also raises SV40 contamination concerns: DNA plasmid manufacturing uses SV40 promoter and enhancer sequences, and he says multiple laboratories detected SV40-related DNA in Pfizer and Moderna products. He compares this with historical polio-vaccine contamination and says regulators have not opened vials for independent inspection. These are presented as McCullough’s interpretations, not findings accepted by the host as independently established.

McCullough says speaking publicly cost him professorships, editorships, grants, advisory roles, and professional relationships, although he believes saving even one patient justified the risk. He says he has not received an invitation for academic grand rounds since 2019, despite having lectured at Harvard and being known at major institutions. Rogan and McCullough discuss excess mortality, fertility declines, strokes among public officials, and what they describe as a pandemic-related reduction in longevity. McCullough says independent organizations, including The Wellness Company, now provide treatments, emergency kits, pharmacies, and supplements because public-health agencies did not treat patients. He predicts people will distrust governments in the next pandemic and seek doctors or independent companies they believe were correct the first time.