Ivermectin’s reputation keeps growing as a kind of cure-all, even for cancer — despite evidence it doesn’t work.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Ivermectin is back. Ivermectin is a drug – a drug that gained notoriety as a disproven COVID treatment. Now, especially in conservative political circles, its reputation keeps growing as a kind of cure-all, even for cancer. That is despite evidence it does not work. NPR’s Yuki Noguchi reports.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: In MaryJo Perry’s experience raising animals, ivermectin is as familiar, safe, cheap and effective as vitamins.
MARYJO PERRY: Oh, we’ve been using it on the farm for 40 years. And I use it on cattle.
NOGUCHI: Ivermectin fights parasitic infections from roundworm, lice and scabies. Perry, who studied animal science, also uses it to treat mange and stray dogs she rescues near her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi.
PERRY: I’ve never seen issues with it.
NOGUCHI: Its reputation as a miracle drug for animal and human disease began with its discovery in the 1970s. It has driven down cases of river blindness around the world. Scientists initially hoped it might treat COVID-19, too. Dozens of studies later confirmed it does not. But Perry, speaking at a political event she organized in September, says she doesn’t believe that research.
PERRY: I believe that it prevents COVID. I know that firsthand. I had it three times and then started taking it.
NOGUCHI: And still occasionally does.
PERRY: I’ve taken care of my family with it. Since I started taking it, I’ve not gotten it again.
NOGUCHI: Patients started asking New Orleans oncologist Jonathan Mizrahi about ivermectin a year ago.
JONATHAN MIZRAHI: Almost half of my new patients were asking me about ivermectin at some point during our initial consultation.
NOGUCHI: He was confused.
MIZRAHI: So I was like, ivermectin? I haven’t heard about that since medical school. And I know some people were talking about that for COVID, but I think we kind of debunked that.
NOGUCHI: Myths still reverberating online then exploded in popularity after actor Mel Gibson suggested on Joe Rogan’s podcast last January that ivermectin cured three friends of advanced cancer. Mizrahi says that, combined with growing public mistrust in government and medicine, convinced some patients to spurn his advice.
MIZRAHI: I’ve had a handful of patients who will choose to not get their traditional cancer treatments and instead use drugs like ivermectin, and those are the most heartbreaking because those are patients that we really have stuff that can help, that’s tried and true, and they’re kind of putting all their eggs in a basket that I don’t think is going to be helpful for them.
NOGUCHI: Dr. John Mafi at UCLA specializes in geriatrics and tracked ivermectin prescriptions, which doctors can write as they see fit. He found them especially common in the South and among older adults. That wave waned after the pandemic only to pick back up in 2024.
JOHN MAFI: It became really a symbol of, I think, this sort of alternative right-wing movement to defy what the government institutions are telling you and to trust your own intuition.
NOGUCHI: Five Republican-led states recently voted to make ivermectin available over the counter. Florida is now funding research on its use in cancer. But Mafi says that is based in politics, not medical belief in the drug’s healing power. Mafi says the drug can have side effects like dizziness, nausea and itchy skin. But the greatest risk is people forgoing conventional treatment. That happened with one of Louisiana cancer doctor John Mizrahi’s young patients who refused chemotherapy in favor of ivermectin and another antiparasitic drug, fenbendazole, to treat Stage 4 cancer. Mizrahi saw him again months later.
MIZRAHI: And I could actually show him, this is what your CAT scan looked like before you were on ivermectin. Then I could objectively say, hey, look, it has not worked for you. It’s the rare case where I can actually do almost, like, a study of one patient and say, hey, look, it didn’t work.
NOGUCHI: That patient resumed recommended treatment. Mizrahi says, nowadays, it’s critical to spend time getting to know patients to better understand their fears, their sources of information and how politics shape their views on health.
MIZRAHI: The nature of politics today, where it really does permeate so many dimensions of people’s lives, makes its way into the exam room. It does. I mean, there’s no doubt about that.
NOGUCHI: And increasingly affects people’s medical decisions. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.
KELLY: And NPR’s Katia Riddle contributed to that report.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIWA SAVAGE SONG, “LOST TIME”)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
