Ivermectin

That ivermectin, a veterinary and human antiparasitic, kills cancer cells and can shrink or eliminate tumours, and that its cheapness and expired patent are why it is not pursued.

Ivermectin's reputation as a suppressed miracle drug was built during the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by the FLCCC network and amplified across podcasts and Telegram. When the COVID claims collapsed under trial data, the same networks carried the drug over to cancer in 2023-2024, boosted by the "Joe Tippens protocol" community and a wave of TikTok testimonials.

Paraphrased summaries of publicly circulating reports, not verbatim quotes from identified individuals. Unverified by definition.

• “Three months on the protocol and my tumour markers dropped for the first time since diagnosis. Nobody in oncology wanted to discuss it with me.”

  reported improvementReported 2023

  Telegram and X threads following the 2023 spread of the cancer claim

• “Took the veterinary paste because it was what I could get. Ended up with tremors and confusion and spent two nights in hospital. Nobody in the group warned about dosing by livestock weight.”

  reported harmReported 2021

  Consistent with poison-centre case reports of self-dosing with veterinary formulations

Ivermectin does kill some cancer cell lines in a petri dish. So does bleach. Laboratory cytotoxicity is the first of many steps and most compounds that pass it fail in animals or humans. As of 2026 there is no completed randomised controlled trial showing ivermectin extends survival or shrinks tumours in humans. A small number of early-phase trials are underway. The large COVID trials (TOGETHER, ACTIV-6, PRINCIPLE) found no benefit for that indication, which does not disprove a cancer effect but does undercut the claim that the drug is broadly suppressed rather than simply tested and found wanting.