Spotify Podcaster Joe Rogan is offering to pay $100,000 to charity to have vaccine researcher Dr. Peter Hotez debate anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his show, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Dr. Hotez, a pediatrician and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, tweeted his concerns over Rogan's recent interview with Kennedy.
In the interview, the Democratic presidential candidate repeated his debunked claims that "common childhood vaccines" cause autism.
Hotez shared a Vice article about the interview and tweeted, "Spotify Has Stopped Even Sort of Trying to Stem Joe Rogan's Vaccine Misinformation. It's really true ?... just awful. And from all the online attacks I'm receiving after this absurd podcast, it's clear many actually believe this nonsense."
Rogan quote tweeted the professor offering to pay $100,000 to the charity of his choice to debate Kennedy on his show.
Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk suggested that Hotez "hates charity" and that he's "afraid of a public debate, because he knows he's wrong."
Despite his concerns, Dr. Hotez expressed a willingness to appear on Rogan's podcast, which reaches millions of listeners on Spotify.
Kennedy's involvement in the anti-vaccine movement intensified after the pandemic and the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. According to filings made with charity regulators, he runs the anti-vaccine charity Children's Health Defense, whose revenues more than doubled in 2020 to $6.8 million.
Kennedy is currently only polling at 15% among potential primary voters since announcing his presidential bid as a Democratic candidate in April, compared to 62% for President Joe Biden.
His anti-vaccine work has sometimes invoked his family's legacy, even including the use of images of John F. Kennedy. However, his sister Kerry, who runs Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the international rights group founded by their mother, Ethel, said that her brother had removed some content at her request.
Kennedy's push against the COVID-19 vaccine has sometimes linked him with anti-democratic figures and groups.
He released a book in 2021, The Real Anthony Fauci, in which he accused the infectious disease doctor of assisting in "a historic coup d'état against Western democracy," promoting unproven COVID-19 treatments such as ivermectin meant to treat parasites and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.
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