Iowa became the sixth state to let adults get ivermectin without a prescription when Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a broad health bill on May 20, 2026, with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on hand, according to Iowa Public Radio. Similar bills in several other states, however, died this year.
The policy debate has a vivid backdrop. In a Cureus case report published in May, surgeons at Yale School of Medicine and the West Haven VA described a 79-year-old man whose primary care doctor declined to prescribe ivermectin. He bought ivermectin paste made for horses online and swallowed a tube of it. The paste formed a mass about 4 centimeters across that blocked his small intestine. He needed two operations, three units of blood, and the removal of just over 50 centimeters of small bowel.
