Celebrity vs Cancer Science: Ivermectin Prescriptions Soared After Mel Gibson Plug

Prescribing for combination ivermectin-benzimidazole doubled after actor Mel Gibson promoted the regimen as a potential cure for advanced cancer during an appearance on a popular podcast, a review of national data showed.

The rate ratio (RR) for monthly prescribing was 1.97 for January through July 2025 versus the same time frame in 2024 (95% CI 1.70-2.29). The RR more than doubled among patients with cancer diagnoses, driven by increases for white men younger than 65, especially those living in the South.

The demographic and regional variation in ivermectin-benzimidazole prescribing mirrored characteristics associated with podcast audiences, “suggesting selective amplification and reach of health misinformation,” reported Michelle S. Rockwell, PhD, of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke, and colleagues in JAMA Network Open.

The implications go beyond ivermectin, which became controversial during the COVID pandemic, and encompass the concerns and challenges confronting patients as they try to understand their diseases and treatments, said co-author Katherine Kahn, MD, of UCLA Health in Los Angeles. Interwoven with those concerns and challenges are elements of mistrust of traditional medicine and practitioners and proliferation of misinformation about diseases and treatments.

“Then there is this treatment that’s described as more natural, and movie stars are talking about it and saying that it’s good and it can save lives, so maybe I’ll take this treatment,” Kahn, alluding to the patient perspective, told MedPage Today. “We have concerns that there’s not evidence for some of these treatments that are advocated by public figures. We stand for evidence-based interventions for our patients, individually and for populations.”

The study evolved from their earlier work that documented the rapid increase in interest and prescribing for ivermectin during COVID.

“I was surprised during our earlier study by the large increase [in prescribing] we noticed during COVID, which made the findings this time less surprising,” said Rockwell. “Still, it’s striking how rapidly the prescribing patterns seem to be changing. In my career, there has been a focus on how to translate good science, good evidence into practice faster. There is still a need for that … but it’s a process that can take years and years, so the fact that the prescribing patterns were influenced very quickly is still really striking, even though it’s not so surprising at this point.”

How It All Started

The current study had its origin in Gibson’s appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” on Jan. 9, 2025. The YouTube-based podcast has more than 16 million subscribers and similarly large audiences on the social media streaming service Spotify and on Facebook. During the podcast, Gibson talked about his mistrust of conventional medicine and support for natural therapies. At one point he claimed that three close friends with stage IV cancer had been cured by the ivermectin-benzimidazole combination.

“The podcast episode spread very quickly through different media sources,” said Rockwell. “We became curious, as a natural follow-up [to the previous study], about how that might be influencing prescribing, specifically for patients with cancer.”

To examine the short-term association between the podcast and ivermectin-benzimidazole prescribing, investigators searched the TriNetX database for U.S. adults who had at least one prescription each for ivermectin and a benzimidazole-class drug from January 2018 through July 2025. They calculated monthly prescribing rates for the combination per 1,000 patients. For validation, they compared their own prescribing rates with reported rates from various national data sources.

After adjustment for age and sex, the authors calculated monthly prescribing rates for the combination during Jan. 1 to July 31, 2025 and compared them with rates for the same months during 2024. The study population comprised 68,373,949 patients.

In addition to the twofold increase in the overall monthly prescribing rate for the 7-month period, the data showed relative increases for:

• Age <65: RR 2.12 vs 1.25 for 65 years or older
• White patients: RR 2.61 vs 1.38 for other racial/ethnic groups
• Residency in the South: RR 3.12 vs 1.36 for other regions

Prescribing among patients with a cancer diagnosis more than doubled for the 7-month period in 2025 (RR 2.63, 95% CI 2.08-3.24), and also increased significantly in the following subgroups:

• Men: RR 2.79 vs 1.93 for women
• Age <65: RR 2.68 vs 1.61
• White patients: RR 3.05 vs 1.28
• Residency in the South: RR 3.91 vs 1.27

Navigating a Slippery Slope

Building doctor-patient relationships based on trust is essential for discussions about non-traditional treatments, said Kahn.

“When a patient comes in with strong ideas based on something in the media and we as clinicians have no evidence that it’s helpful, or may even be harmful, this definitely can create tension,” she said. “In my practice, and as a teacher, I talk very firmly about the importance of trust with the patient, so that when an issue like this comes up, when it’s the media versus the scientific literature and what we know from patient care, we can guide the patient to a more helpful or less harmful outcome.”

“[Clinicians] spend a lot of words on evidence-based use of this or that, but that really doesn’t have so much meaning for patients,” Kahn added. “What has meaning for patients is whether they have a history with the medical system or with us as clinicians. We can say that we know what you see in the literature and what your friends are doing, but that’s not what I would recommend for you for this or that reason. These are conversations that I think my colleagues should be having regularly with patients.”

Working with patients influenced by family, friends, or the media is nothing new, but the current situation “feels really different,” said Rockwell.

“The volume of information that patients are faced with and the speed by which that information or misinformation travels and the trust or mistrust or distrust in institutions of health and science, make it more complicated,” she added. “Trusting relationships between clinician and patient is part of the solution, but preparing clinicians for difficult conversations is also important. It can be a slippery slope. Ivermectin might not have a lot of side effects that can hurt patients, but the real source of harm can come when a patient foregoes proven, potentially effective therapy for something like this, that’s not proven.”