I didn’t even know who Suzanne Humphries was and I wish I still didn’t, and I’ve never listened to Joe Rogan, other than via clips typically by someone debunking bonkers crap that guy or his guests are saying. But Dr. Wilson of Debunk The Funk listened to the interview with Suzanne Humphries and oh my is there a lot to debunk. I couldn’t even believe some of the outrageous stuff that people are being fed via a podcast that’s absolutely not based in reality, not true, and even dangerously wrong.
Joe Rogan even brought up the absolutely not true right-wing conspiracy theory from early in the pandemic that people who smoked were supposedly protected from covid by nicotine. Like ivermectin or colloidal silver, and other qanon or right-wing misinformation quack cures, this is also one that made the jump from right-wing misinformation to left misinformation, or to people with Long Covid being enticed into trying experimentally or self-experimentally, and with seemingly no awareness of the origins of the “idea” they’ve newly discovered. At the time when prominent Long Covid twitter influencers started announcing they were trying nicotine, I had trouble pointing this out to even some otherwise sensible people, because the silos are such that if you’re not in the right-wing milieu you won’t know about all these things unless you are exposed to it through Right Wing Watch media coverage, Knowledge Fight podcast, Debunk the Funk videos, or other outlets covering these things. The nature of the algorithms keeps us blind to so much, that progressives often don’t recognize right-wing concepts, and even anti-vax talking points sneak into pro-vax spaces many times. Just a couple months ago I found the “childhood milestone” pandemic conspiracy theory which started out as right-wing anti public health disinformation claiming the CDC had foreknowledge of childhood development issues supposedly caused by mitigation measures the right wing opposed like masks, vaccines, and remote learning, and it was being repurposed just recently into viral social media content that claimed it’s evidence of a conspiracy that CDC had foreknowledge about effects of long covid on childhood development. In either case the supposed conspiracy is easily refuted by the timelines, but it’s an excellent example of the jump and the misinformation zombies that just keep circulating because they have some hook to make them get traction. Though usually there are products involved and stuff based in anti-vax disinformation and wellness product sales are repurposed from being sold as bogus covid cures, and presented as hopeful long covid cures to the desperate.