{"id":25047,"date":"2025-03-31T15:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T15:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25047"},"modified":"2025-03-31T15:28:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T15:28:33","slug":"what-ivermectin-can-and-cant-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25047","title":{"rendered":"What Ivermectin Can (and Can\u2019t) Do"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Social media posts have promoted the anti-parasitic drug for cancer and Covid. That has doctors alarmed.<\/p>\n

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At least once a week, someone asks Dr. Skyler Johnson if ivermectin can treat their cancer.<\/p>\n

Patients have asked about the anti-parasitic drug for years, especially during the pandemic.<\/a> But in recent months, Dr. Johnson, a radiation oncologist at the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, has fielded more and more questions about the medication.<\/p>\n

Exaggerated and inaccurate comments about ivermectin have intensified online lately. Google searches for \u201civermectin\u201d hit their highest point in January since a Covid wave in 2022. That month, the actor Mel Gibson appeared on the hit podcast \u201cThe Joe Rogan Experience\u201d and said that three friends with Stage 4 cancer recovered after taking ivermectin, among other drugs. Researchers said the podcast, which received 10 million views on YouTube alone, fed into a flood of inaccurate claims<\/a> and misinformation about the drug\u2019s purported health benefits.<\/p>\n

At the same time, politicians in several states are promoting legislation that would make it easier for people to obtain ivermectin. The governor of Arkansas signed a bill last week that would enable people to buy it without a prescription. Lawmakers in Georgia, Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky have filed, or said they plan to file, similar legislation. <\/p>\n

A wealth of research has shown the drug does not treat Covid. And there is not evidence to support people taking ivermectin to treat cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI understand that people, a lot of times, want to take health into their own hands \u2014 they want to figure things out on their own,\u201d said Krissy Lunz Trujillo, an assistant professor of political science at the University of South Carolina who researches health misinformation. \u201cBut that might have really serious consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Johnson worries that people will forgo traditional cancer treatments for a drug that hasn\u2019t been proven to work. He tells patients that there is no rigorous research showing the anti-parasitic drug cures cancer in humans. Still, he has seen some people with early, treatable tumors turn to the drug, and return months later with cancers that have spread to their lymph nodes, bones and brain.<\/p>\n

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Social media posts have promoted the anti-parasitic drug for cancer and Covid. That has doctors alarmed.At least once a week, someone asks Dr. Skyler Johnson if ivermectin can treat their cancer.Patients have asked about the anti-parasitic drug for years, especially during the pandemic. But in recent months, Dr. Johnson, a radiation oncologist at the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, has fielded more and more questions about the medication.Exaggerated and inaccurate comments about ivermectin have intensified online lately. Google searches for \u201civermectin\u201d hit their highest point in January since a Covid wave in 2022. That month, the actor Mel Gibson appeared on the hit podcast \u201cThe Joe Rogan Experience\u201d and said that three friends with Stage 4 cancer recovered after taking ivermectin, among other drugs. Researchers said the podcast, which received 10 million views on YouTube alone, fed into a flood of inaccurate claims and misinformation about the drug\u2019s purported health benefits.At the same time, politicians in several states are promoting legislation that would make it easier for people to obtain ivermectin. The governor of Arkansas signed a bill last week that would enable people to buy it without a prescription. Lawmakers in Georgia, Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky have filed, or said they plan to file, similar legislation. A wealth of research has shown the drug does not treat Covid. And there is not evidence to support people taking ivermectin to treat cancer.\u201cI understand that people, a lot of times, want to take health into their own hands \u2014 they want to figure things out on their own,\u201d said Krissy Lunz Trujillo, an assistant professor of political science at the University of South Carolina who researches health misinformation. \u201cBut that might have really serious consequences.\u201dDr. Johnson worries that people will forgo traditional cancer treatments for a drug that hasn\u2019t been proven to work. He tells patients that there is no rigorous research showing the anti-parasitic drug cures cancer in humans. Still, he has seen some people with early, treatable tumors turn to the drug, and return months later with cancers that have spread to their lymph nodes, bones and brain.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25049,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25050,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25047\/revisions\/25050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}