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Georgia lawmakers are considering a bill to make a controversial anti-parasitic drug available over the counter. Even though ivermectin has been shown to have no effect on Covid or cancer, false claims spread on social media encourage those uses.
A state House committee held a hearing on the bill this week but did not vote.
State Rep. Karen Mathiak, a Griffin Republican, said she wants people to be able to buy the drug at pharmacies rather than farm supply stores. She said that though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved the drug for Covid treatment, people are using it that way.
“What happens now is people are buying it out of Tractor Supply and farm supply houses, and dosing by weight, by the patient’s weight,” Mathiak said. “I’m asking for it just to be over the counter.”
Sen. Colton Moore, a Trenton Republican, introduced a similar bill last year. It was assigned to the Agriculture and Consumer Affairs committee but did not get a hearing.
At least four states – Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, and Louisiana – had enacted similar legislation as of last summer, and similar bills were proposed in at least 12 other states, NBC News reported.
Ivermectin was discovered in the 1970s and was first used to treat parasites in animals. During the pandemic, it was promoted by fringe medical groups as a treatment for Covid. Some social media influencers have hyped it as a miracle cure for a variety of diseases, including cancer.
“We’ve done clinical studies looking at ivermectin, and there is not enough evidence clinically for the FDA to approve this as an indication for Covid, in terms of having it as an over-the-counter medication,” said Dr. Colleen Kraft, a professor in the Departments of Pathology and Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine.
Inappropriate use of the drug can cause harm, ranging from mild symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea to more severe effects like confusion, loss of balance, seizures, and even death, said Dr. Tom Moore, a parasitologist who is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.
He said that’s especially true for people who take the drug in large doses or via transdermal application or subcutaneous injections.
The number of cancer-related social media posts mentioning ivermectin doubled in the first half of 2025 compared to all of 2024. Such posts touted ivermectin’s purported ability to treat cancer or enhance chemotherapy or immunotherapy’s benefits, KFF, a nonprofit health policy think tank, found last year.
The National Cancer Institute is studying the drug, director Anthony Letai said. He said results are expected in a few months, KFF Health News reported this week. The move has prompted criticism from career scientists at the agency, who said it diverts resources from more promising treatments “based on nonscientific ideas.”
Ivermectin does have limited use for humans in the United States. As a pill, it can be used to treat strongyloidiasis, a type of roundworm infection, and river blindness, a neglected tropical disease found primarily in Africa.
A topical version of ivermectin can also be used for scabies and head lice but is typically not a frontline treatment for simple cases, Kraft said. It can also be prescribed for rosacea.
Kraft and Moore said some of the confusion around ivermectin during the pandemic was prompted by early test tube studies in which scientists experimented with a wide range of drugs to find something that would work for Covid. An early signal of the potential efficacy for ivermectin against Covid took on a life of its own, even as large-scale clinical trials failed to show evidence of the drug’s efficacy.
That focus on ivermectin during the pandemic deterred some people from seeking more effective medical treatments.
“There are some people that wish they had come to the hospital sooner instead of taking ivermectin,” Kraft said about patients she saw. There are now proven treatments like Paxlovid and remdesivir that have FDA approval for Covid, she said.
It’s important that physicians be able to help patients manage their medications and potential interactions, and opening the door to over-the-counter ivermectin could mean patients take the drug without proper medical guidance, she said.
Rebecca Grapevine is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org.
