Aaron Rodgers was joking last week when he called Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce “Mr. Pfizer.” Rodgers also wasn’t joking.
There was an edge of disdain and derision in the term that Rodgers used. When the subject came up during this week’s visit with Pat McAfee and company, it was clear that Rodgers had a strong anti-vaccine (or, as some — like me — would say, anti-science) viewpoint lurking behind the effort at levity.
Rodgers started by responding to Kelce’s reference to Rodgers as being aligned with Johnson & Johnson in the “vaxx wars,” given that Rodgers plays for the team owned by J&J heir Woody Johnson. It was the first time Rodgers publicly addressed the indirect link to one of the Big Pharma companies that he believes have commissioned the sports media to vilify him for his anti-vaccine rhetoric. (I’m still waiting for my check.)
“It’s fascinating,” Rodgers said of the reaction to his coining of the “Mr. Pfizer” moniker. “I mean, the triggering, though. Was that not incredible last week? People getting absolutely triggered? Listen, you know, like I saw some of it. I love — I mean, the Johnsons have been great to me. So I don’t mind you calling me ‘Mr. Johnson & Johnson.’ Woody and Christopher and their families, they’ve been great. I don’t play for the Johnson & Johnson corporation, I play for the New York Jets. So I mean, you know, I made a tiny little joke about a guy shilling for a, you know, potentially — it’s not potentially, but it’s a you know corrupt company and everybody kind of loses their minds over it.”
Although it’s not easy to discern it over the laughter in reaction to Rodgers’s failed effort to stop himself from saying it, he definitely called Pfizer a “corrupt company.”
Later, Rodgers challenged Kelce to debate the subject of vaccines in a public setting.
“Well, there’s a lot of propaganda out there,” Rodgers said. “Lot of propaganda out there. Listen, you know, Mr. Pfizer said he didn’t think he’d be in a vaxx war with me. . . . This ain’t a war, homey, this is conversation. But if you wanna have some sort of duel, debate, have me on the podcast, come on the show. Let’s have a conversation.
“Let’s do it like in John Wick IV, right? So we both have a second, right? So somebody to help us out. I’m gonna take my man RFK, Jr. . . . And he can have, you know, Tony Fauci or some other Pharmacrat, and we can have a conversation about this.”
Jokes aside, Rodgers’s viewpoint is clear. He’s anti-vaccine. Anti-science. That’s his business. If he doesn’t want to take shots that protect him from certain conditions and/or limit their effects, so be it. But it’s not helpful for his own brand of propaganda to be used in an effort to persuade those who might truly need a vaccine or two to get it.
We’ll see whether Mr. Pfizer agrees to debate Mr. Johnson & Johnson, and whether it’ll be a vehicle for giving RFK, Jr., who is now running for president as an independent, a platform for pushing the anti-science agenda against “Tony Fauci or some other Pharmacrat.”
Regardless, while it all may have seemed like a joke last week, there’s something far deeper going on here. We’ll perhaps see how far and how deep it all goes, if Mr. Pfizer accepts Johnny Ivermectin’s challenge.
