The Numbers Are In

Researchers from Virginia Tech, UCLA, and the University of Michigan combed through electronic health records for 68,373,949 patients across 67 U.S. health systems. The study was published July 15, 2025, in JAMA Network Open — one of the most widely cited medical journals in the country.

Result: ivermectin and benzimidazole prescriptions doubled among all patients between January 1 and July 31, 2025, compared to the same window in 2024. Among cancer patients specifically, the rate jumped 2.5 times higher.

This covers the full seven-month period following Mel Gibson's January 2025 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast — an episode that, according to CIDRAP News, was viewed 60 million times in its first month alone. The Independent put the current YouTube view count at 13 million, suggesting a significant portion of viewers watched it on other platforms or clips.

What Gibson Actually Said

His exact claim, per The Independent: "I don't believe that there is anything that can afflict mankind that hasn't got a natural cure for it." He described three friends with stage-four cancer who he said were cured after taking ivermectin and fenbendazole.

Fenbendazole is a benzimidazole — the same class of antiparasitic drug named in the study. It is NOT approved for human use. Ivermectin is approved for parasitic infections but is NOT approved or proven as a cancer treatment.

What the Science Actually Says

Preclinical cell and animal studies do show some anti-cancer activity from these drugs, according to Dr. Skyler B. Johnson, MD, of the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, who was not involved in the study. That's documented. But the critical problem, per Johnson: the dose required to produce even a small anti-cancer effect in humans would likely be toxic. There have been ZERO completed clinical trials on ivermectin-benzimidazole for human cancer treatment.

Johnson also flagged a concern mainstream coverage is largely ignoring — these drugs could interfere with how the body processes actual, proven cancer treatments. Cancer patients taking ivermectin might be undermining the chemo or targeted therapy that is working.

Clinical trials are underway. The science isn't settled in either direction. Gibson presented it as settled — and 60 million people heard that version first.

Who Is Taking These Drugs

The study identified a clear demographic pattern. The prescribing spike was most pronounced among white patients, men, and people living in the South — groups that overlap heavily with Joe Rogan's core audience.

Rogan's listeners are a known demographic. The study's authors used that overlap to argue correlation between the podcast and the prescribing shift.

The Researcher's Core Concern

Michelle Rockwell, PhD, RD, the lead author and a health services researcher at Virginia Tech, told CIDRAP News her concern isn't that people are curious about ivermectin. It's that seriously ill patients might delay or abandon conventional treatments while waiting to see if the alternative works. Stage-four cancer does not wait.

"The elevated prescribing observed among patients with cancer is particularly concerning," the research team wrote. "Individuals facing life-threatening illness may delay or forgo conventional treatments in favor of unproven therapies, potentially allowing their disease to progress."

What Mainstream Coverage Is Getting Wrong

Left-leaning outlets are framing this entirely as a misinformation crisis caused by right-wing celebrities. That framing ignores real grievances driving the behavior.

Matthew Facciani, PhD, a social scientist at the Yale School of Public Health who was NOT involved in the study, told CIDRAP News that legitimate frustrations with the healthcare system — pharmaceutical pricing, insurance barriers, dehumanizing bureaucracy — make people genuinely more open to alternatives. He called it "a perfect storm of fear, urgency, uncertainty, information overload."

People aren't stupid for distrusting institutions that have, repeatedly, failed them. That context gets scrubbed from coverage that just wants to dismiss Rogan listeners.

Right-leaning coverage, meanwhile, is largely cheering the prescribing spike as a win against Big Pharma without engaging with Johnson's toxicity concern or the drug interaction risk.

The Bottom Line

A peer-reviewed study covering 68 million patients just documented one podcast episode measurably changing medical behavior across the country at scale.

The answer is NOT censoring Rogan or Gibson. Free speech means people get to be wrong out loud. The answer is better, faster, more honest communication from institutions that have spent years burning their own credibility.

Cancer patients are making desperate decisions based on celebrity anecdotes because they don't fully trust the people in white coats.