Have public health agencies reported increases in ivermectin toxicity cases during COVID-19 misinformation waves?

1. Public‑health alerts and poison‑center data show a surge

Federal and state public‑health bodies publicly warned of a rapid rise in ivermectin misuse and associated harms: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distributed a health advisory in August 2021 documenting increased calls to poison centers and higher dispensing of ivermectin ^[1], and the National Poison Data System registered a 245% jump in exposure calls from July to August 2021 ^[2], a signal echoed in state reports and press coverage ^{[6] [5]}.

2. Pharmacovigilance databases recorded more adverse‑event reports tied to COVID‑19 use

Global adverse‑event monitoring captured an increase in ivermectin‑related reports beginning in mid‑2020: analysis of the WHO VigiBase showed a marked rise in reports from May 2020 onward, with hundreds more entries specifying COVID‑19 as the indication and multiple serious events including neurologic reactions, overdoses and deaths ^[3].

3. Clinical case series and medical literature documented severe poisonings

Peer‑reviewed case series and CDC‑linked reports catalogued numerous instances of severe illness after people took veterinary or highly concentrated formulations or large human doses, describing seizures, altered mental status, coma and several fatalities, and noting that many exposures occurred within hours of a large dose or after repeated misuse ^{[4] [7] [1]}.

4. Prescribing and dispensing patterns rose alongside misinformation, but interpretation is nuanced

Analyses documented large increases in prescriptions and outpatient dispensing compared with pre‑pandemic baselines—one review reported human prescriptions were many times higher during the pandemic and another described regional spikes tied to misinformation and political geography—linking higher dispensing to the broader infodemic while acknowledging that prescription data alone cannot distinguish appropriate from inappropriate use ^{[8] [9] [10]}.

5. Agencies linked increases to misuse driven by false claims but flagged surveillance limits

Public advisories and medical societies explicitly tied the spike in exposures to off‑label use promoted by non‑evidence sources and social media, and urged reporting and clinician vigilance; at the same time they cautioned that surveillance signals can reflect increased public awareness, clinician reporting or policy changes (for example, New Mexico asked providers to report ivermectin toxicity), meaning that observed rises are consistent with, but not definitive proof of, direct causation by misinformation alone ^{[5] [1] [11]}.

6. Alternative interpretations and remaining uncertainties

While multiple independent data sources—CDC Health Alert Network, state health departments, poison centers, WHO pharmacovigilance and peer‑reviewed reports—converge on an increase in reported ivermectin toxicity coincident with waves of COVID‑19 misinformation ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}, investigators note limitations: under‑ or over‑reporting, the mixture of veterinary versus prescription human product exposures, and confounding by severe COVID‑19 treatments or co‑medications complicate precise attribution of causality and magnitude ^{[4] [12]}.

Conclusion

Multiple public‑health agencies and surveillance systems reported increases in ivermectin exposures, poison‑control calls and adverse‑event reports during the pandemic period when misinformation about ivermectin proliferated, and they issued warnings about toxicity and increased prescribing; these convergent signals strongly support a real surge in reported harms even as surveillance limitations prevent a single, definitive causal estimate ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.