I’m pretty sure I’d never even heard of ivermectin before the pandemic, probably due to not regularly traveling to sub-Saharan Africa and being fortunate enough to have evaded scabies my entire fifty-plus years. If I’d googled the lifesaving, internationally celebrated, Nobel Prize-winning wonder drug back then, I’m sure I’d have found nothing but fawning tributes and assurances of unparalleled safety.
Originally developed in the 1970s, ivermectin earned the pinnacle of scientific recognition in 2015 for its remarkable success in treating tropical diseases. Since its discovery, the humble anti-parasitic has been given to billions of people around the world and has a safety profile that puts Tylenol’s to shame.
Cue COVID-19
About five minutes after announcing that the entire planet was under attack by a novel, possibly deadly cold coronavirus, our health agencies, in lockstep with the global media, had but one focus, a single salvation: vaccines.
Of course, even a warp-sped solution was going to take a minute or two, so doctors around the world continued to do what doctors have always done—and been allowed to do—since Hippocrates first floated the crazy notion that diseases might be caused by natural factors rather than punishment from the gods: they practiced medicine.
They experimented with repurposed drugs they were certain wouldn’t hurt and hopeful might help. They leaned on past experiences, their powers of reasoning, common sense, and each other. They formed online communities where they shared potions and protocols that weren’t just alleviating symptoms but actually saving lives. And while many options showed at least modest promise (antibiotics, corticosteroids, hydroxychloroquine), it was ivermectin that stood out for its profound safety and remarkable efficacy in preventing and treating Covid.
As followers of the IMA certainly know by now, the Powers That Be wasted no time discrediting the inexpensive, off-patent medication. Why? Because it threatened the billions they stood to make on the shiny new, enormously profitable jabs they had coming down the pike.
A critical condition for those vaccines’ Emergency Use Authorization, of course, was that there could be no effective treatment option; if there was, you could hardly call it an emergency.
The devil is always in the details.Despite coordinated attacks from the media, fact-checking organizations, celebrities, paid influencers, high-profile political figures, the mainstream medical community and its agencies, and a slew of late-night talk show hosts and comedians, the masses began hearing about ivermectin’s many miraculous outcomes thanks to the globally-connected digital world we live in. Naturally, people wanted it. They demanded prescriptions for it, bought it for outrageous sums from strangers on the internet, and even turned to the veterinary version you could easily buy—without any side-eye even—on Amazon. The result? The most successful smear campaign since Fat Makes You Fat™.
If you were an ignorant granny killer for refusing the clot shot, you were a card-carrying, QAnon-believing, Bigfoot-chasing, 5G-fearing, tin-foil-hat-wearing flat-earther if you took ivermectin.
Social media users were deplatformed for merely mentioning it; doctors lost their licenses and certifications for prescribing it; pharmacists were prosecuted for dispensing it. And all the while, people who continued to contract COVID were subjected to the only officially approved protocol: the deadly combination of remdesivir and ventilation.
Thankfully, courageous doctors like Pierre Kory, Paul Marik, Mary Talley Bowden, Kathleen Ruddy, William Makis, Peter McCullough, Ryan Cole, Robert Apter, and Harvey Risch never stopped advocating for access to ivermectin. A lawsuit brought by doctors Marik, Bowden, and Apter against the FDA resulted in the court’s decision that the agency lacked the authority to provide medical advice and forced the removal of consumer advisories related to ivermectin—including the Orwellian “You’re not a horse” whopper. And non-medics like Senator Ron Johnson, entrepreneur and Vaccine Safety Research Foundation pioneer Steve Kirsch, and attorney Ralph Lorigo, who filed countless emergency lawsuits on behalf of hospitalized patients who were refused ivermectin, continue to fight tirelessly to raise public awareness and champion medical freedom.
And now, four long, torturous years later, the pendulum has officially swung. Just this week, yesterday’s conspiracy cure was trending on X—this time not as a punchline, but as a headline.
Three states (Idaho, Arkansas, and Tennessee) have passed legislation making ivermectin available over-the-counter without a prescription
Fourteen states (Texas, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alabama, Maine, South Carolina, Minnesota, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Georgia, and Oklahoma) are actively pursuing OTC status.
After being demonized as a worthless veterinary medicine, the little molecule that could is finally regaining its rightful standing as a legitimate, safe, and powerful therapeutic.
The irony? The ferocity with which the establishment tried to slander ivermectin is likely what fueled the renewed interest and subsequent study. It must be incredibly powerful, wise folks mused, if they’re this desperate to discredit it.
Here’s the delicious plot twist in this Shakespearean tragedy of medical absurdity: Ivermectin’s not just for parasites anymore. (You already knew that if you saw Mel Gibson’s explosive interview with Joe Rogan.) Researchers and clinicians are using the unsung compound in groundbreaking ways and seeing promising results against certain cancers, chronic skin conditions, and even autoimmune diseases.
What was once wildly disparaged as horse paste is now being studied as a potential pillar of future treatment protocols—proof that the real quackery was banning it in the first place. (Scores of users on X have been sharing false information that the FDA is now endorsing ivermectin for Covid—unfortunately, the agency is not. So, we aren’t there yet; but we’re close.)
In the meantime, doctors are once again doing what doctors are supposed to do: practicing medicine. They’re using their training, judgment, and experience to treat human beings—not just blindly parroting pharmaceutical propaganda. It’s almost like Hippocrates knew what he was talking about.
Jenna McCarthy is a speaker and the author of a few dozen books for adults and children. Her writing appears here monthly, in a column called “Here’s a thought…” Subscribe now to get the series in your inbox, along with the rest of IMA’s news and updates.
