More cancer patients are using the alternative treatment ivermectin and Joe Rogan’s podcast may be the reason why

Prescriptions for ivermectin and benzimidazole, an unproven cancer treatment, more than doubled in early 2025 after actor Mel Gibson endorsed the medicines on Joe Rogan’s podcast, according to researchers.

During the January 2025 episode, which has more than 13 million views on YouTube, Gibson spoke of three friends who had been battling stage-four cancer until they took ivermectin and fenbendazole, part of the class of drugs that includes benzimidazole.

"I don’t believe that there is anything that can afflict mankind that hasn’t got a natural cure for it," Gibson said.

Ivermectin is an approved drug for treating parasitic infections in humans and animals, while fenbendazole is not approved for human use.

After these comments, cancer patients were prescribed the drugs at a rate 2.5 times higher in the first seven months of 2025 than in the same period in 2024, according to a study by researchers at Virginia Tech, UCLA and the University of Michigan published in JAMA Network Open on Tuesday. Meanwhile, prescriptions of the drugs to all patients doubled during this window.

Prescriptions for an unproven cancer treatment more than doubled after actor Mel Gibson endorsed the medicines on a January 2025 episode of the Joe Rogan podcast (Getty)

“The elevated prescribing observed among patients with cancer is particularly concerning; individuals facing life-threatening illness may delay or forgo conventional treatments in favor of unproven therapies, potentially allowing their disease to progress,” the researchers, who analyzed health records for more than 68 million patients, wrote.

The spike was especially pronounced in white patients, men, and patients in the South, groups that overlap strongly with Rogan’s listenership, the scientists found.

In recent years, ivermectin became popular on the right for people seeking protection against Covid, and Rogan himself touted the parasitic drug, which is not an effective coronavirus treatment.

Preclinical studies have suggested a potential anticancer benefit to the drug, and clinical trials are underway, but it remains far from a proven cancer treatment for humans.

The study’s researchers warned that patients seeking out these drugs is a reminder of the challenges of providing solid medical information in the age of influencers and AI.

"Clinicians talk about how difficult it is when the patient demands or asks for a medication that they really feel passionately might help," Virginia Tech’s Michelle Rockwell told the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. "And that's where I think these celebrity influencers really play a big role."

“There’s this perfect storm of fear, urgency, uncertainty, information overload and then this desperate need for hope,” Dr. Shikha Jain, an oncologist at the University of Illinois Cancer Center who was not involved in the study, told The New York Times. “When somebody is offering you a magic cure for something and they give anecdotal examples, it can feel very hopeful.”

Half of U.S. adults under 50 get health and wellness information from influencers or podcasters, many of whom lack a scientific or medical background, according to a recent Pew Research report.

Conversations on The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most popular podcasts in the world, frequently involve elements of pseudoscience or outright conspiracy theories.

Rogan’s anything-goes ethos prompted massive controversy during the pandemic. He was accused of hosting guests who spread medical misinformation.

Spotify, which has a reported $100 million deal with Rogan, began adding content advisory labels and links to vetted medical information to some episodes that touched on Covid.

Prominent musicians such as Neil Young, meanwhile, temporarily pulled their music from the platform in protest.