Joe Rogan Experience #2534 - Annie Jacobsen · Aired Jul 31, 2026
Claim summary · not a verbatim quotation
A man in California was found to have a makeshift laboratory in a residential building containing nearly 1,000 dead mice and vials including HIV and malaria.
The finding
What the evidence shows
A lab like this was real, and HIV and malaria really were among the pathogens the CDC found there. But a congressional investigation found the mice numbered around 1,000 total with most still alive when officials first got inside, 773 living versus 172 dead, and the facility was a warehouse near a residential neighborhood, not a residential building itself.
Read the supporting source · en.wikisource.org ↗Quick answer & review status
Quick answer
Is it true that a man in California was found to have a makeshift laboratory in a residential building containing nearly 1,000 dead mice and vials including HIV and malaria?
Partly. The claim stretches what the evidence shows. A lab like this was real, and HIV and malaria really were among the pathogens the CDC found there. It was said on Joe Rogan Experience #2534 - Annie Jacobsen, aired Jul 31, 2026, at 1:04:47. We haven't independently confirmed who said it. The supporting source is en.wikisource.org, linked below.
The context belongs here.
No separately verified on-air correction is recorded for this check. That is not a claim that nobody corrected it.
- Attribution
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- Editorial context review
- Not recorded; generated finding
- Coverage
- One selected claim from the episode
Revisions to this check
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