How many emergency department visits were attributed to veterinary ivermectin during the 2020–2022 COVID period?

1. Regional case series: hard numbers from Oregon — 13 ED visits documented

A retrospective review from the Oregon Poison Center reported 37 cases of ivermectin toxicity that led to healthcare visits over a 24‑week window in late 2021 and early 2022, of which 13 patients were treated in an emergency department and 21 were hospitalized, establishing a concrete, localized count that confirms veterinary formulations were implicated in serious presentations ^{[3] [4]}.

2. National poison‑control surveillance: clear trend but no single ED total

Federal and national poison‑control reporting captured a marked increase in human exposures and adverse effects linked to ivermectin during 2021, and specifically called out greater use of veterinary products not meant for people; the CDC confirmed with the American Association of Poison Control Centers that reports rose above pre‑pandemic baselines, but these summaries do not provide an aggregated national emergency‑department visit count for the entire 2020–2022 period in the sources provided ^[1].

3. Media, FDA and veterinary groups: corroboration of rises, not a definitive numerator

U.S. regulatory and media sources documented hospitalizations and emergency visits tied to people self‑medicating with veterinary ivermectin and warned against such use — for example the FDA and news outlets reported multiple hospitalizations after ingestion of formulations intended for animals — but these communications emphasize risk and trend data rather than publishing a consolidated nationwide ED‑visit total for 2020–2022 in the materials at hand ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

4. Surveillance gaps and how they limit a definitive national count

Poison‑center call volume increases and local case series signal elevated harms — some poison centers reported up to a five‑fold rise in ivermectin exposure calls versus pre‑pandemic baselines — yet such surveillance is fragmented across jurisdictions, varies in coding of veterinary versus human formulations, and often reports exposures or calls rather than confirmed emergency‑department encounters, preventing calculation of a single, verified national number from the provided sources ^{[2] [1]}.

5. What the available data allow and what they do not

From the supplied reporting it is defensible to state that veterinary ivermectin caused multiple emergency‑department presentations and hospitalizations during the pandemic, and that at least 13 ED visits occurred in the Oregon Poison Center series (Aug 14, 2021–Jan 31, 2022) with many more exposures captured elsewhere by poison centers and public health alerts ^{[3] [4] [1] [2]}. What cannot be asserted from these sources is a single aggregated nationwide count of ED visits attributed to veterinary ivermectin over the entire 2020–2022 interval — the reporting simply lacks a consolidated national denominator ^[1].

6. Competing narratives and incentives in the coverage

Public‑health agencies and poison centers repeatedly highlighted increases to warn the public and prevent misuse, which aligns with clinicians’ and veterinarians’ interests in patient safety; simultaneously, some advocacy or political messaging around treatments created demand signals that likely drove some misuse, but the supplied reports focus on clinical and surveillance findings rather than dissecting political incentives in depth ^{[1] [5] [2]}. Alternative viewpoints that argued for ivermectin’s use in COVID‑19 were addressed in clinical trial literature showing no benefit for COVID‑19 outcomes, which undercuts clinical rationales for off‑label self‑administration documented by the surveillance reports ^{[8] [6]}.