13 Feb 2022

The Kiwi doctor who played a part in Neil Young's Spotify exit

From Sunday Morning, 8:23 am on 13 February 2022

New Zealander Andrew Read is a professor of biology and entomology at Penn State whose research focuses on the ecology and evolutionary genetics of infectious disease. Recently, he may have played a part (through no fault of his own) in Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and other leading artists leaving Spotify after American podcaster Joe Rogan misrepresented an old study of his into vaccinated chickens. Rogan's misunderstanding of the 2015 research led to him wrongly concluding that vaccinating people against Covid-19 will increase the chances of some hyper-virulent mutation. Dr Read is with us to discuss where Rogan got things so badly wrong and what the future of Covid-19 is likely to look like.

New Zealander Andrew Read is a professor of biology and entomology at Penn State.

New Zealander Andrew Read is a professor of biology and entomology at Penn State. Photo: Bill Cardoni