- Aaron Rodgers told Joe Rogan he is allergic to an ingredient in the mRNA COVID vaccines.
- Instead of getting vaccinated, Rodgers said he took an oral treatment from a "holistic doctor."
On "The Joe Rogan Experience,"Aaron Rodgers attempted to describe an unproven dilution he swallowed in a bid to protect himself from contracting COVID-19.
This is the treatment that he said "immunized" him against the coronavirus, even though the 38-year-old Green Bay Packers quarterback did not receive a COVID-19 vaccine. But chemistry and medical experts say there is no evidence behind such an intervention, and even homeopathic doctors recommend conventional vaccines.
Rodgers told Rogan that he is allergic to polyethylene glycol (PEG), an ingredient in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. PEG is an extremely common ingredient which is included in face creams, processed foods, laxatives, and medications. The compound is so widely used because it is a great moisturizing and stabilizing agent, and because PEG allergies are exceedingly rare (according to a 2021 study, around 0.0009% of people are allergic to PEG).
Rodgers added that he didn't get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — which, before Novavax was OK'd in July, was the only US-authorized COVID vaccine that did not use mRNA technology — because it had been paused due to blood-clotting issues in a few recipients, most of whom were women.
Instead, Rodgers said he pursued an alternative, months-long treatment that involved taking a "diluted strand" of the virus orally. He referred to it as an "immunization process through a holistic doctor." "I researched and talked to probably a dozen different MDs and found a protocol that I felt like was the best available," Rodgers said on the episode, which aired August 27.
The quarterback described his research process last year, telling "The Pat McAfee Show" that he compiled 500 pages of research to persuade the NFL to accept this treatment as a substitute for COVID-19 vaccination. (NFL medical experts found there was no good evidence that the treatment worked.)
"It involved, basically, a couple-month process of taking a diluted strand of the virus," Rodgers told Rogan. "So I was doing basically what the vaccine is supposed to do without—"
"How do they do that?" Rogan interjected.
"I don't know the exact way that they did that," Rodgers said.
Moments later, Rogan — who has come under fire for saying young people shouldn't get the COVID-19 vaccine and who's repeatedly given a major platform to vaccine skeptics on his podcast — asked how they got a diluted strand of the virus in his treatment.
"I don't know that exactly, or wanna get into that exactly," Rodgers responded, giggling as he and Rogan smoked cigars and blew smoke into the air.
"OK," Rogan said.
Why the body does not respond to these highly-diluted treatments
What Rodgers is likely referring to is a "homeopathic vaccine." They're based on theories of Samuel Hahnemann who developed similar remedies more than 200 years ago. And while scientists agree these are not necessarily harmful substances, they also are not useful.
The idea behind such homeopathy is that if a virus, toxin, or other illness-causing substance can be diluted in a solution many times over, essentially removing it entirely from that product, and then you ingest the substance, your body can create antibodies to it, and you'll be protected from illness.
Rodgers, who tested positive for COVID-19 in November 2021, isn't the only one using these treatments. At least one woman in Napa was arrested last year for selling "immunization pellets" and forging COVID-19 vaccine cards.
Joe Schwarcz, a chemistry professor who directs the office for science and society at McGill University, told Insider the issue is that "homeopathic remedies basically contain nothing, and non-existent molecules do not have any effect on the body."
Public health expert René Najera, editor of the history of vaccines project from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, says many trials over the years have concluded "the best that it can do is the placebo effect."
"If people really dove into the subject of chemistry — and we're not all good at chemistry — they would understand that homeopathic vaccines don't work" he told Insider, saying there's some "magical thinking" involved in believing that a substance might somehow "remember" a pathogen, chemical, or toxin that was diluted in it "many, many, many, many times over."
"What you're basically buying is saline," Najera said.
Clinically-trialled vaccines were developed as a better way to protect against disease
Both the British and Australian homeopathic associations recommend patients receive all routine, conventional vaccinations, in addition to any homeopathic preparations.
Rudimentary forms of vaccination date back to at least the 1600s, when people were first starting to understand how our immune systems work.
The science undergirding vaccine development accelerated further when germ theory was discovered in the 1800s.
Today's vaccines often include weakened or deadened versions or portions of a virus or bacteria. Vaccines teach the body's immune system how to fight off disease in a safe and controlled way.
Vaccines are subject to some of the most rigorous regulations of any medical intervention around because they are given to healthy people.
"The bottom line is when you're looking for information about vaccination, look to scientists who have spent lifetimes researching this, not to a football player," Schwarcz added.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend mRNA vaccination to people with serious PEG allergies, but the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine is a safe alternative for people over 12 years of age, and it is available at vaccine sites nationwide, for free.
Some patients with PEG allergies have also gone through a desensitization process to get an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine safely, under supervision by an allergist.