How many ivermectin exposures were reported to U.S. poison control centers each year from 2016 to 2025?
Executive summary
A precise year-by-year count of ivermectin exposures reported to U.S. poison control centers for 2016–2025 is not available in the documents provided; the sources supplied national and state snapshots that document a marked rise in 2020–2021 and continued concern afterward, but they do not publish an annualized NPDS table covering 2016–2025 for direct citation [1] [2]. Where the record is clear, public data and peer‑reviewed reports show very low baseline call volumes before the COVID‑19 misinformation surge and a sharp spike in 2021 [3] [4] [5].
1. Baseline years (2016–2019): limited published counts, low signal before COVID‑19)
Multiple reporting outlets and poison‑center communications describe ivermectin exposures as uncommon before the pandemic, but none of the provided sources supply a complete, cited annual tally for 2016–2019, so a definitive numeric series for those years cannot be reconstructed from the available documents [1] [6] [7]. State poison centers and reviews characterize pre‑2020 exposure rates as low or “rare,” and academic poison‑center analyses treat 2015–2019 as a baseline period for interrupted‑time analyses rather than publishing simple national annual totals [8] [6].
2. 2020–2021: documented surge tied to COVID‑19 misinformation, with specific NPDS snapshots
The clearest, citable figures center on 2021: the National Poison Data System (NPDS) recorded a dramatic month‑to‑month rise in mid‑2021—133 reported ivermectin exposures in July and 459 in August 2021, a 245% month‑over‑month jump that was widely reported [3]. NPDS reported 1,143 exposure cases between January 1 and August 31, 2021, a 163% increase over the same period the prior year, and federal summaries note roughly a three‑fold increase in calls in January 2021 compared with the pre‑pandemic baseline [9] [5] [2]. Peer‑reviewed correspondence and state summaries document similar local surges—Oregon Poison Center saw virtually no monthly calls in 2020 (0.25 calls/month) jump to 21 calls in August 2021, underscoring that the spike was both national and site‑specific [4].
3. 2022–2025: continued advisories and regional reporting, but no comprehensive national annual totals in these sources
Public health advisories and poison‑center pages through 2024 continue to warn of misuse and rising exposures and note increased dispensing and veterinary‑product misuse, but the supplied materials do not include a year‑by‑year NPDS extract for 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025 to state exact annual counts [2] [10] [5]. State materials (e.g., Missouri, Georgia, Mississippi) and CDC advisories narrate an ongoing problem and provide case examples and partial aggregates, but the national, annualized numbers for those latter years are not present in the provided documents [5] [6] [11].
4. Why a full 2016–2025 table cannot be credibly produced from these sources
The webPOISONCONTROL dashboard and NPDS are the authoritative data systems for near‑real‑time and historical U.S. poison‑exposure data, but the excerpts provided here include selective counts and trend statements rather than an exhaustive annual series for 2016–2025; reconstructing yearly totals would require direct NPDS or webPOISONCONTROL extraction or a government/peer‑reviewed table that is not among the supplied sources [1] [3] [2]. Peer‑reviewed analyses and state reports supply valuable snapshots (e.g., Jan–Aug 2021 = 1,143 cases; July and August 2021 month counts) and characterize pre‑2020 volumes as low, yet they stop short of publishing the complete nine‑ or ten‑year series requested [3] [9] [4] [5].
5. Caveats, agendas and next steps for a definitive answer
Sources documenting the spike have public‑health intent—warning about misuse and veterinary product ingestion—and sometimes emphasize dramatic monthly jumps to mobilize clinicians and policymakers, a framing that serves health‑protection agendas but does not substitute for a clean annual dataset [2] [10] [5]. To obtain an authoritative year‑by‑year count for 2016–2025, the NPDS/webPOISONCONTROL query or a formal CDC/peer‑reviewed table covering those calendar years would be required; the current corpus provides strong evidence of a sharp rise peaking in 2021 but lacks the full annual series needed to produce exact counts for every year from 2016 through 2025 [1] [3] [2].