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After a January 2025 podcast promoted ivermectin with a dog dewormer as a cancer cure, US prescriptions of the combination doubled overall and rose 2.6-fold among people with cancer, most steeply in the South.
Using electronic records from 67 US health care organisations covering 68,373,949 patients, the authors compared same-day ivermectin plus benzimidazole prescribing from January to July 2025 with the same months of 2024 (Rockwell JAMA Network Open 2026). Overall prescribing doubled, rate ratio 1.97 with a 99.5 percent confidence interval of 1.70 to 2.29, and among patients with a cancer diagnosis it rose 2.63-fold, 99.5 percent confidence interval 2.08 to 3.24, with larger rises in men, in adults under 65, in White patients and in the South (Rockwell JAMA Network Open 2026). The authors note that no rigorous trial evidence supports ivermectin, fenbendazole or other benzimidazoles for cancer, and that the podcast was viewed more than 60 million times (Rockwell JAMA Network Open 2026).
Measures the reach of the claim rather than the drug: tens of thousands of prescriptions written on the strength of a podcast, with no trial behind them.
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Shares Fenbendazole, ivermectin and other internet 'repurposed cures', Mebendazole, Ivermectin, Misinformation and unproven therapies.
Shares Fenbendazole, ivermectin and other internet 'repurposed cures', Ivermectin, Misinformation and unproven therapies.
Shares Fenbendazole (veterinary anthelmintic), Ivermectin, Misinformation and unproven therapies.
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