Hollywood star Mel Gibson and popular American podcast host Joe Rogan have claimed that former chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci should face prosecution, as they discussed his influence on the American healthcare system over the years.
Fauci became the public face of the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic both under President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. The imposition of restrictive measures and the scientist’s reported involvement in suppressing the theory that the virus may have originated from US-funded gain-of-function research in China have made Fauci a controversial figure.
Gibson was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Thursday. Both men wondered how Fauci was “still walking around,” or “at least free” after his actions during the pandemic.
They were discussing the 2021 book by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. titled ‘The Real Anthony Fauci’. The author, a healthcare campaigner turned politician, described Fauci as an official in cahoots with big pharmaceutical corporations, who had abused his power for decades. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the US was one of the main topics of the book.
”That book is an accurate depiction of what Anthony Fauci did during the AIDS crisis, which probably was an AZT crisis,” Rogan claimed.
He was referring to the antiretroviral medication azidothymidine. It was the first to be used en masse in the late 1980s to suppress HIV and had serious side effects. Kennedy claimed that Fauci, in his role as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), improperly endorsed AZT and downplayed its side effects while undermining possible alternative treatments.
”I drove up to San Francisco and I listened to it and I had road rage,” Gibson said, recalling his reaction to the book.
”If this is true, what the f**k is going on and how is that monster still loose?” Rogan asked. Meanwhile, the outgoing Biden administration is considering “giving him a full pardon – it's like f**king crazy.”
Fauci’s name came up as the two were criticizing mainstream media for its “complicity” in protecting for-profit healthcare in the US. Gibson recalled how Rogan was attacked by news outlets for taking the drug ivermectin after testing positive for Covid-19 in 2021.
The medicine is widely used to treat parasites in humans in Africa. But the media dismissed it as a “horse dewormer” – the drug’s usual application in the US – as they urged the public to vaccinate against Covid-19.