Joe Rogan makes explosive claim about insidious disease spreading through US: 'It was weaponized'

Daily Mail​

11-07-2025

Joe Rogan 's explosive claims about an insidious disease are gaining new attention as the illness spreads throughout the US this summer.
During a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Rogan claimed that there's evidence Lyme disease, which is spread by tick bites, was actually a man-made weapon which leaked out of an island lab near Connecticut.
Rogan, 57, has continued to claim the devastating illness was artificially created by scientists on his podcast for several years, discussing the alleged Lyme disease conspiracy in 2019 and 2020.
During a March 14 interview with comedian Michael Kosta, Rogan added that US Health and Human Services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr also believes the tick-borne illness was part of a botched US bioweapons program in the 1970s.
'Turns out there's a lot of real evidence that Lyme disease was weaponized... It came out of a lab called Plum Island, which was close to Lyme, Connecticut. And RFK Jr. firmly believes that this was a weapons program,' Rogan said.
Lyme disease is an infection caused by a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. Scientists have continued to call Rogan's claims a debunked conspiracy, citing evidence that the bacteria existed in North America in prehistoric times.
In the US, between 30,000 and 40,000 cases are reported annually to the CDC, but the health agency has noted that up to 476,000 cases occur yearly and go unreported or undiagnosed.
Along with a telltale rash around the bite, symptoms often include fever, fatigue, and muscle aches, but severe and untreated cases can also lead to fatal complications like heart problems, neurological issues, and brain inflammation.
In the US, between 30,000 and 40,000 cases are reported annually to the CDC, but the health agency has noted that up to 476,000 cases occur yearly and go unreported or undiagnosed
In June and July, nymph-stage ticks are most likely to bite people. The Rogan claims from March were reposted on X Thursday, leading to a resurgence in attention, with the clip already being viewed more than a million times.
'What they were going to do is develop these fleas and ticks with a disease that spreads rapidly, wipes out the medical system of a community,' Rogan claimed in the March 14 podcast episode.
'So, you could dump them from a plane, everybody gets infected, overwhelms their medical system, and then they're more vulnerable if you want to attack them,' he continued.
Plum Island is a 840-acre island off the northeastern coast of Long Island, New York. It's home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) and has been used by the US government for research on infectious animal diseases since the 1950s.
In 2019, Rogan said that there was a 'popular thought' that the natural spread of Lyme disease from this one area in Connecticut 'doesn't necessarily make sense.'
A year later, Rogan revealed how New Jersey congressman Chris Smith had called for an investigation by the Pentagon into claims that secret research was conducted on Plum Island and at Fort Detrick in Maryland on weaponizing ticks.
'Can you imagine if those c**** created a f****** disease and now everyone on the East Coast has it? Because it's mostly out there,' Rogan said during a January 2020 episode of his podcast.
The US Department of Homeland Security has written in a statement that the government facility at Plum Island 'does not and has not performed research on Lyme disease.'
In 2024, RFK Jr made the same claims about the disease, alleging on his own podcast that government scientists were experimenting with ticks on this island in the Northeast.
'The ticks are an epidemic because of what happened at Plum Island and the other labs,' the health secretary said in the January 2024 episode of the RFK Jr Podcast.
'We also know that they were experimenting with diseases of the kind, like Lyme disease, at that lab, and they were putting them in ticks and then infecting people,' RFK Jr added.
A year later, during his US Senate confirmation hearing, RFK Jr was questioned about his reported belief that Lyme disease was created as a US bioweapon, saying that he 'never believed that' but the public should follow wherever the evidence leads.
Both Rogan and RFK Jr have cited multiple reports and books which have investigated the topic, as well as interviews with scientists who were allegedly involved in these tick experiments.
One of those books, Bitten by Kris Newby, featured an interview with Willy Burgdorfer, the scientist who identified the Lyme disease bacterium, who admitted that he had worked on turning fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes into potential bioweapons.
Lyme disease annually spreads throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Upper Midwest, particularly in states like Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin when the weather warms up between April and October.
The most common areas where ticks attach themselves to people are in outdoor spaces with lots of high grass and vegetation, like a field or in the woods.
When an infected tick bites a person and stays attached for 36 to 48 hours, it allows the bacteria to transfer to the insect's victim.
Ticks pick up the bacteria by feeding on infected animals like deer or mice. It does not spread from person to person.
Within three days to a month, a red, bull's-eye rash at the bite site will appear in 70 to 80 percent of cases.
Flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, fatigue, headache, muscle aches, and swollen lymph nodes are common as well.
Lyme disease is treatable, especially when caught early, with the primary treatment being antibiotics that eliminate the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria.
If left untreated, however, later stages of the disease can lead to joint pain or swelling, facial paralysis (Bell's palsy), heart palpitations, nerve pain, memory problems, or potentially fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.
Despite the growing claims of a government conspiracy, multiple doctors and scientists have pushed back on the theory Lyme disease did not come from nature.
Studies by the American Lyme Disease Foundation and Yale researchers have found Borrelia burgdorferi in dead animals from 1870 to 1919, which were preserved in museum collections.