Earlier this year, podcast host Joe Rogan took to social media to challenge Dr. Peter Hotez to a debate about COVID-19 and the vaccines developed to fight it.
The challenge went viral as Rogan said that he would moderate the debate between the doctor and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Hotez declined, despite the push from Rogan and others who doubt the efficacy of vaccines.
Hotez, the Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital, joined News Talk 830 WCCO’s Henry Lake to discuss the situation.
The doctor shared that he first began focusing on vaccines when he began his schooling, wanting to help benefit and keep others safe.
But now, the work and knowledge he’s gained on developing hookworm vaccines and other shots is being used for another purpose.
“When I was a medical student and graduate student and resident, I never dreamed of an anti-vaccine movement, but I’ve been taking that on, and that’s been one of the toughest challenges of all,” Hotez said.
Having a daughter with autism, Hotez acknowledged that one of the leading anti-vaccine talking points is that it’s caused by shots. However, Hotez says this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Needing to do something, he wrote a book about how vaccines didn’t cause his daughter’s autism, which he says made him public enemy number one for anti-vaxxers.
“I knew there was no link, and the data has since supported that,” Hotez said.
Hotez says that the movement has since adapted, leading to the movements we have today, centered around health freedoms, which has also joined with what he called “far-right extremism.”
Nonetheless, he says the refusal from so many to get the COVID-19 shot resulted in the needless death of thousands who believed the “phony rhetoric on the far-right.”
When it comes to the push from RFK Jr. to debate, Hotez said that having a public debate with him “wouldn’t be productive,” being that they had already had several private discussions during the Trump presidency that fell flat.
Hotez also thought it would send the wrong message, making it seem like “science was up for clever debate” when he says it isn’t.
“I can’t think of any example where science was actually advanced through debate,” Hotez said. “I understand 18th-century enlightened philosophy is up for debate. I understand politics is up for debate, but not science.”