According to a recent study published in the JAMA Network Open, Ivermectin prescriptions had skyrocketed in the United States after the January 2025 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience. During the podcast, Mel Gibson stated that Ivermectin and another antiparasitic drug were successful in treating three of his friends’ cancers.
The study analyzed electronic medical records from 68,373,949 patients across 67 health systems in the US and searched for prescribing rates of Ivermectin and Benzimidazole. It concluded that after the podcast, the prescription rate for the drugs doubled from January 1, 2024, to July 31, 2024. For cancer patients, the increase was even higher at 2.5 times.
Now, Ivermectin and Fenbendazole are both commonly used to treat worms in animals. The former’s development won two researchers the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
The medicine is now well proven to be safe and very effective in treating diseases in people that are caused by parasitic worms.
However, there is yet to be any clinical trial evidence that suggests that it can be used to treat cancer. Yet Mel Gibson suggested in the podcast that it was effective in treating stage four cancer for three of his friends.
Is Ivermectin effective in treating cancer?
As mentioned, there have yet to be any clinical trials on the two drugs that suggest that they are safe in treating cancers in people. Till now, there have only been some studies that show that the drugs can produce some anti-cancer activities in animals.
However, according to Skyler B. Johnson, MD, of the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, the dose needed for it to be effective on humans will be exceedingly toxic for them. Irrespective of the lack of proof, Gibson went on to claim in the Joe Rogan podcast that both untested drugs cured cancer for his friends.
The podcast was viewed 60 million times in the first month and led to the dramatic surge in Ivermectin prescriptions in the US.
This raises the question of consumption safety, and even if people were unharmed by the medications, prescriptions lead to excess demand. According to Michelle Rockwell, PhD, RD, a health services researcher at Virginia Tech,
“Clinicians talk about how difficult it is when the patient demands or asks for a medication that they really feel passionately might help. And that’s where I think these celebrity influencers really play a big role.”
Surprisingly, this is not the first time that the properties of Ivermectin were blown out of proportion when it came to what it can treat and what it cannot.
In 2019, Ivermectin was also being considered as a potential treatment for COVID-19 during the early months of the pandemic. However, several clinical trials did outline that the drug had next to no impact in lowering severe diseases caused by a virus or helped in improving the rate of recovery in any way.
So, just because a celebrity endorses a drug, one really needs to wait for clinical trials to be conducted before actually going on to consume it.
