These States Now Allow OTC Ivermectin, and More May Follow

[lostincalifornia]

"A handful of states have passed legislation allowing ivermectin to be sold and purchased over-the-counter (OTC) -- and other state legislatures have their sights set on doing the same.

During the pandemic, rampant misinformationopens in a new tab or window drew attention to the antiparasitic as a treatment for COVID, though research continues to showopens in a new tab or window it is not effective against the disease.

Ivermectin tablets are FDA approved at specific doses for treating some parasitic worms, as are topical formulations for some skin conditions and head lice, but neither are FDA approved for preventing or treating COVID. Despite this, an increasing number of states are making it easier to get ivermectin and protecting pharmacists from lawsuits and discipline by licensing boards. None of the laws have information about dosing.

Currently four states -- Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, and Louisiana -- have passed OTC ivermectin laws.

In April 2022, Tennessee passed SB 2188opens in a new tab or window/HB 2746opens in a new tab or window, becoming the first state to make ivermectin available OTC. The legislation authorizes "ivermectin suitable for human use" to be sold or purchased OTC "without a prescription or consultation with a pharmacist or other healthcare professional." For 3 years, Tennessee was the only state to have OTC ivermectin.

Then on March 25 of this year, Arkansas passed SB 189opens in a new tab or window, now Act 396opens in a new tab or window. Weeks later, on April 14, Idaho passed similar OTC ivermectin legislation, SB 1211opens in a new tab or window.

Louisiana SB 19opens in a new tab or window, now Act 464, went into effect on June 20, making it the latest state to make ivermectin available OTC. This law specifies that a pharmacist can dispense ivermectin to adults "pursuant to a standing order issued by a healthcare professional with prescriptive authority" and requires the pharmacist to provide the patient with information on indications and contraindications as well as a screening risk assessment tool. For this service, the pharmacy may charge an administrative fee. Ralph Abraham, MDopens in a new tab or window, the state's surgeon general, backed the bill.

In addition to these, other states have bills moving through their legislatures:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/116436?mh=9701e5e556ac1543dfb2ab968550813c&xid=nl_secondopinion_2025-07-22&zdee=gAAAAABm4uxvn5SAgpa5xYOjEigEAQDQRkAhu4TBX5CA0Y-Ne5nq63wV8FW92mTfJJfq-J92Zza9t0cgSw4IwOLHwJZFloDqiQyZOWJPNCMtMesditQWGBo%3D

A comment on this article:

"Politicians really need to stay out of the medical business. First they try to take an FDA approved drug off the market (Mifepristone) for political reasons, and now they're trying to take another one and make it OTC, for political reasons! Who needs the FDA?! Soon we'll all be able to sell whatever snake oil we want...
Could we maybe leave the practice of medicine to the professionals, folks?"

[NJCher]

1. I just knew

It would be states like this: Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, and Louisiana.

[JT45242]

6. I was worried it would be Iowa where I am a work hostage

Covid Kimmy and the sycophants in the legislature won't be far behind

[Cosmocat]

7. YEP

nm

[Irish_Dem]

2. Gut medicaid, medicare, vaccines. Let people treat themselves with worthless OTC drugs.

[travelingthrulife]

9. I agree. My evangelical nitwit brother is using ivermectin for prostate cancer

despite my (oncology nurse over 40 years) warning him it has no anti-cancer activity. I expect he will waste his early cancer years on this and will emerge as a stage 4 in a year or so.

It has anti-inflammatory properties so they feel a bit better on it probably.

They cannot be told anything so let them eat ivermectin.

[Irish_Dem]

12. Yes cancer is much more treatable in early stages.

If he waits until he gets to stage 4 to get serious about his treatment, it may be too late.
The treatments will be more intense with side effects as well?

It could also be some minor placebo effects.
He thinks worthless drugs are miracle drugs, so he feels a bit better on it.

Your brother is a fool for ignoring his sister who is an experienced oncology RN.

But the MAGAs are all geniuses and we are all stupid.
So let him eat worthless meds.

[milestogo]

16. I knew someone who got a rare GI cancer.

It was inoperable. So she put herself under the care of a "doctor" who told her to eat grapes to purify/detox her body. She ate grapes until she died less than a year later.

[Irish_Dem]

17. Well if someone is terminal with no hope, and eating grapes makes them happy, go for it. :(

[milestogo]

18. She just hated western medicine and didn't want to go through chemo.

[Irish_Dem]

20. A friend of mine chose not to go through chemo.

She had no issue with western medicine but did not want to lose her hair and get sick from the chemo.
The doctor said the chemo would only extend her life 6 months and she didn't think it was worth it.
Everyone disagreed with her at the time, but in hindsight she died on her own terms.

Now that Medicare is going to be severely monitored and curtailed, I guess the govt will
make those choices for us.

[Rebl2]

21. I have

taken a small dose of methotrexate for rheumatoid arthritis since 1985. I am a small woman, and that small dose makes me nauseous a day or two a week. Imagine feeling that way for forty years. I am literally sick and tired of it. If I get cancer, I don’t know that I will agree to take chemo after my 40 year experience.

[milestogo]

22. I'm sorry Rebl2. That must be hard.

I've heard that a lot of doctors who get cancer decide not to go through the radiation/chemo course of treatment. Of course - they understand exactly what they would be dealing with. But I think that decision is unique to one's circumstances. If you're 20 its probably worth it. If you're 75 maybe not.

[Rebl2]

24. I was

twenty-eight when I started taking it, newly married and needed relief from my RA. Nothing was helping and eventually, after taking it for a while it helped. Now at 68, I am tired of the side effects and have been for many years now. I take a biologic drug that helps and have taken one since about 2007. First Enbrel and now Humira. I feel like they have helped, except, of course, not the old arthritis damage already done.

[Irish_Dem]

23. I can sympathize.

I am quite small too, and very drug sensitive.
Drug reactions make me sicker than any illness or disease so far.
I have to take children's dosing of any medication.

I think chemo would kill me.

[Rebl2]

26. Same here

I believe chemo would kill me. It almost killed my MIL when she took chemo for lung cancer back in the nineties. She was a normal sized woman.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

45. Remember Sarah Palin and "Death Panels" regarding the ACA?

Well folks! The MAGAts have brought back DEATH PANELS!

Taking medicine out of the hands of the Medical professionals.

[Irish_Dem]

46. The GOP always accuses others of the crimes they themselves commit.

It is the way of psychopaths.

[Delphinus]

3. Under Braun,

I imagine Indiana will join that list.

[TnDem]

4. So what?

Why would anyone care if it is sold over the counter?....If it doesn't work, then what is the difference?

[Skittles]

5. WTF

these are the same assholes who wouldn't mind pharmacists denying birth control pills

it's FUCKED UP

[TnDem]

37. OK, but

What does birth control pills have to do with ivermectin and why do we care if anybody buys it, takes it or doesn't take it?

I frankly don't care what anyone takes or doesn't take, nor do I or should I care about what or why they take or don't take.

[Skittles]

38. OMFG

if you cannot see the problem here I cannot help you, JFC

[TnDem]

41. Sorry, don't see the outrage?

If someone wants to eat dogshit for a stubbed toe, what do I care?

So, yeah...I don't see a problem because I don't care what other people ingest.

[Fullduplexxx]

8. Yeah I agree let them have Ivermectin if they want it it'll help get rid of the people we need to be rid of

[NJCher]

13. See post 9

Duh.

[Wednesdays]

19. Also post 10. nt

[TnDem]

36. OK, and read the last line of the post

"Let them eat ivermectin" was the last sentence of post #9

Who cares if they take it, don't take it, throw it away or throw it up?

Personally, let people take or not take whatever they want....I am not fond of authoritarian anything.

[Johnny2X2X]

10. Worth repeating this story

My next door neighbor was a wonderful person, really fun and funny, she was a widow. She went to a church that forced her to be a Right Winger. About 4 years ago, her bladder cancer came back. Someone in her church group told her that Chemo will kill her and shared several stories of Ivermectin curing cancer. She told her doctors she wasn't going to do chemo, they plead with her to reconsider, she was steadfast that prayer and Donald Trump's magic potion, Ivermectin, would cure her. She died about 3 months later. I talked to her son a few weeks before she passed and he was despondent, she refused to listen to anyone but her church group and Donald Trump. Her cancer would have been treatable.

[PCIntern]

11. I'm all for it: Darwin's Law

Yes we will lose some good folks but you always do in a war.

[Arazi]

14. They could always get it at any animal feed store or shipped direct from Amazon

I literally could care less that some dumbshits will die doing this.

Bigger issue is the politicization of the FDA by tacitly endorsing this bullshit (while trying to ban mifepristone)

[milestogo]

15. Are they buying it for livestock?

[Torchlight]

25. Oh, fantastic, because when I think of public health strategy

the first people who come to mind are state legislators with Wi-Fi and a grudge against science. Forget decades of drug approval protocols, peer-reviewed research, and actual evidence. Just slap a “freedom” sticker on horse dewormer and call it medicine.

[JustAnotherGen]

27. Natural

Selection.

[Blue Full Moon]

28. Ivermectin can cause death with overdose

[pcdb]

40. So can Tylenol

[Torchlight]

49. And bleach.

[womanofthehills]

42. Ivermectin has proven to be a pretty save drug

About 200 to 300 million people take ivermectin annually. It’s been used by over 4 billion people and has no black box warning.

[Ritabert]

29. Do they know that a potential side effect of ivermectin is explosive diarrhea?

It's a horse dewormer.

[Ritabert]

35. Whatever

[eppur_se_muova]

43. All metazoans -- no viruses. Mechanism of action involves neurotrasmitters, which viruses do not have.

It is effective against a wide range of parasites, including gastrointestinal roundworms, lungworms, mites, lice and hornflies.7–12) Ivermectin is also highly effective against ticks, for example, the ixodid tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, one of the most important cattle parasites in the tropics and subtropics, which causes enormous economic damage.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3043740/

Mode of action

Initially, researchers working on the development of ivermectin believed that it blocked neurotransmitters, acting on GABA-gated Cl- channels, exhibiting potent disruption at GABA receptors in invertebrates and mammals. GABA is recognised as the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the somatic neuromuscular system of nematodes. Subsequently, they discovered that it was in fact glutamate-gated Cl- channels (GUCl- ) that were the target of ivermectin and related drugs. This discovery opened up a completely new spectrum of possibilities, as these channels, although playing fundamental roles in nematodes and insects, are not accessible in vertebrates.41–43) Ivermectin, while paralyzing body-wall and pharyngeal muscle in nematodes has no such impact in mammals, as it cannot cross the blood-brain barrier into the mammalian Central Nervous System, where GABA receptors are located.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3043740/#sec7

Interesting to read that it really is a wonder drug where invertebrate infections are involved, but the wonder is sharply limited. No action against vertebrates, or (evidently) against viruses.

[eppur_se_muova]

47. Yep, acts by disrupting the formation of the cross-linked polysaccharide cell walls of bacteria.

Penicillins and cephalosporins are called "antiobiotics", they're really "antibotanicals".

[bluestarone]

30. Well, i'm betting that 100% of Democrats will NEVER take this pill. So

If it's the MAGA base, and religious LOONIES taking it, WHO CARES?

[Walleye]

32. The topical version, selamectin, is in my cat's flea treatment

Once a month on the back of his neck. It works great, but I have to have a prescription from the veterinarian.

[Freddie]

33. My husband uses a prescription ivermectin cream for rosacea

That’s what it’s for. It actually didn’t help much. When he stopped drinking the rosacea went away.

[Midnight Writer]

34. The Republican Party: Promoting Natural Selection for fifty years while denying it exists.

[Greybnk48]

39. Dipshit MAGAs taking flea and tick medicine.

Just go to Farm and Fleet and buy Frontline. Lol!

[Aristus]

51. Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic.

Maybe if the Trumpsters all take it (to own the libs, I'm sure), they will inadvertently rid us all of their odious presence.

One can only hope.

[Faux pas]

52. LOL they're culling their herd

not ours! I say go for it!!!!!