OPINION:
There are few things in this world that the left hates more than President Trump, but one of them may be ivermectin.
That’s the decades-old antiparasitic that gained a new following during COVID-19, largely thanks to an endorsement from the commander in chief.
More recently, ivermectin has made headlines for its potential to fight cancer.
Those who have dared tout the drug’s benefits in cancer treatment — such as the admittedly nutty Mel Gibson, on Joe Rogan’s podcast last year — have been immediately pilloried.
“Although some share personal stories of themselves or people they know treating their cancer with ivermectin, no major health organizations or regulatory bodies have approved it for cancer treatment, and the use of ivermectin could pose health risks,” health policy research site KFF warns in a July 2025 article.
That’s not the most convincing argument, given how totally unreliable the advice of “major” groups and agencies proved during the pandemic emergency.
Even if we agree that approval by a vaunted institution makes a pharmaceutical 100% safe to take, there’s always the possibility that said institution will change its mind down the road. Does anyone remember fen-phen?
What’s more, ivermectin has been used safely and effectively for about 50 years to treat various infections.
In February, National Cancer Institute Director Anthony Letai said the NCI was conducting preclinical trials to assess ivermectin’s ability to kill cancer cells. Although results are not yet available, a growing pool of data does indeed show the drug’s promise.
A 2023 research paper published on the National Institutes of Health website says ivermectin “holds tremendous potential as a novel anticancer drug” and “can suppress the growth of various cancer cells, including glioma, through a multitude of mechanisms such as selective targeting of tumor-specific proteins, inducing programmed cell death, and modulation of tumor-related signaling pathways.”
A 2021 paper also notes ivermectin’s “powerful antitumor effects” and concludes that the medication would even be a good candidate for drug repositioning, or new applications for an already approved pharmaceutical. Ivermectin, it continues, “selectively inhibits the proliferation of tumors at a dose that is not toxic to normal cells and can reverse the [multi-drug resistance] of tumors.”
The drug’s cancer-fighting promise even predates COVID-19. A 2017 Mexican study “demonstrated that ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug approved for human use, preferentially targeted the [cancer stem cell]-enriched subpopulation of” an aggressive, invasive breast cancer cell line.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, you won’t find any of this on page one (or even two or three) of a cursory web search on ivermectin. What you will find quite easily is a summary dismissal of even the notion that this cheap, widely available over-the-counter medicine might help in the fight against a variety of deadly cancers.
“Dozens of studies … confirmed the drug is not an effective treatment,” reads a recent NPR article.
“There is no old or new scientific evidence to support a hypothesis that ivermectin can cure cancer — or justify any such federal expenditure,” according to an Ars Technica piece from February.
The New York Times, in March: “Exaggerated and inaccurate comments about ivermectin have intensified online lately.”
You can find posts online from people who say they saw positive results from ivermectin in the treatment of their cancer, but you won’t find them easily.
“Ivermectin cured my cancer,” one Facebook user wrote this month. “In June 2021 I was told I had [six] months to live. Started taking ivermectin and I’m still here today.”
Most such posts, if you manage to locate them, are followed by spates of nasty comments from people who hate ivermectin (but don’t seem to know why) and call the pro-ivermectin poster every synonym for crazy.
Why? Are the Trump-bashing media, Big Tech and the political left writ large so afraid that something the president backed could portray him in a positive light that they would resort to their usual chicanery (ignoring real research, belittling those with whom they disagree, burying search results) and forgo a potential boon to humanity?
Anyone who paid attention during the Biden administration can answer that.
Whether ivermectin becomes a viable, effective supplemental treatment for human cancers remains to be seen, but it should be given the same chance in the sphere of public opinion as any other “drug repositioning” candidate, or it will never succeed.
That, unfortunately, may be what the left wants.
• Anath Hartmann is deputy commentary editor for The Washington Times.
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