Among the many recommendations floating around during early COVID times—along with the now-disproven hydroxychloroquine, and President Donald Trump’s suggestion that scientists study UV rays and bleach injections—was ivermectin, a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration only to treat some parasitic worms (and also used to treat parasites in animals). U.S. outpatient prescriptions for the drug, according to a recent study, increased 10-fold above pre-pandemic rates—despite strong evidence that disproves its effectiveness in treating COVID.
Before becoming health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. name-checked the drug in an October rant on X about the “FDA’s war on public health” and its suppression of many treatments, also including raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, clean foods, and “anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
