NASHVILLE, Tenn. — 4 years in the past, Tennessee turned the primary state to permit adults to purchase the antiparasitic drug ivermectin from a pharmacy with out first seeing a health care provider. Pharmacies can use a pre-written, blanket prescription to promote to only about anybody who walks by means of their doorways.
The drug is now marketed and bought throughout the state in roadside retailers and small-town strip malls with little oversight from well being authorities. Freeway billboards promote ivermectin as “Available Without a Prescription in Tennessee!” whereas dozens of pharmacies provide extremely concentrated drugs, generally at 10 or 20 instances the efficiency of a normal pill.
Ivermectin is a Nobel Prize-winning, typically protected drug authorised by the FDA for treating parasitic ailments in people, which might typically be carried out with a single dose of three or 4 prescription-strength tablets. Additionally it is used as a dewormer for horses and different livestock.
Its recognition surged throughout the pandemic as fringe medical doctors and anti-vaccine activists promoted it as a therapy for covid. Medical trials have proven that ivermectin is not efficient towards covid.
Nonetheless, it has since turn into an emblem of resistance towards the medical institution amongst conservatives and followers of the Make America Wholesome Once more motion, championed by Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Timothy Caulfield, a professor on the College of Alberta who research well being misinformation, mentioned ivermectin turned an “ideological flag” throughout the covid pandemic, opening the door for influencers to push the drug for different illnesses to a “captured audience” even with out proof it really works for these circumstances.
“This is really about profit. This is about political identity. This is about creating distrust in the existing biomedical community. This is about money,” Caulfield mentioned in an interview with ABC Information, which partnered with KFF Well being Information to report on ivermectin.
After a hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship earlier this yr, unproven claims that ivermectin is efficient towards the virus have been unfold by some fashionable social media accounts and right-wing figures, together with former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The World Well being Group says it has seen no analysis that reveals ivermectin is an efficient hantavirus therapy.
Tennessee’s ivermectin invoice was shepherded by a Republican supermajority in 2022. Its passage blindsided state medical officers and handed a victory to medical teams that unfold covid misinformation.
Some pharmacy web sites now provide the drug as a therapy for covid, “long haul vax symptoms,” diabetes, or most cancers — regardless of no proof of its effectiveness for these functions — whereas the new regulation largely provides pharmacists immunity from lawsuits or skilled sanctions associated to ivermectin.
The regulation was additionally a harbinger of laws to come back: Greater than two dozen states have since thought-about look-alike payments that will make the politicized medicine accessible and not using a requiring a health care provider go to.
John Mafi, a UCLA inner medication doctor who has studied the rise of ivermectin amongst most cancers sufferers, worries it is going to lure folks away from confirmed therapies. He co-authored a brand new research figuring out a pointy enhance in prescribing charges for ivermectin and one other antiparasitic drug, notably within the South. The rise adopted a January 2025 episode of the Joe Rogan Expertise podcast by which actor Mel Gibson claimed ivermectin and different medicine cured three buddies with stage 4 most cancers.
“It’s going back to 19th-century quack science,” Mafi mentioned about off-label use of ivermectin. “It is alarming that I’m seeing this really unproven therapy being touted to so many potentially vulnerable Americans.”
The FDA says ivermectin may be harmful in giant doses. Tennessee has seen a small however regarding rise in indicators of overuse. The Tennessee Poison Middle, which fields calls from folks uncovered to medicine or poisonous substances, acquired greater than 60 requires attainable ivermectin poisoning in 2025, probably the most since 2021. They included reviews of vomiting, blurred imaginative and prescient, neurological issues, and issue strolling.
“People are taking this because they just feel unwell. It’s almost like a panacea now,” mentioned Rebecca Bruccoleri, the poison heart’s medical director. “I’ve heard rumblings on the internet of using ivermectin for an alternative cancer treatment, and we’re seeing it definitely in here.”
Pharmacist Paul Hughey has distributed ivermectin beneath the brand new regulation at two Tennessee pharmacies: Mt. Juliet Pharmacy and Compound Rx. He estimated that “up to 20 people in a week” are shopping for ivermectin however that peak demand was double or triple that quantity.
For years, Hughey mentioned in an interview, clients have relayed emotional “testimonies” concerning the drug therapeutic the sick, “especially with the cancer patients.”
“I’ll get a doctor call in and they say: ‘Guess what. So-and-so is cured.’ And it’s just amazing to hear that. So anybody who doubts that,” Hughey mentioned, “I don’t really know that they’re practicing medicine. I think they’re just following the narrative.”
‘I’ve Taken Bucketloads of This Stuff’
The linchpin of Tennessee’s ivermectin market is Denise Sibley, a conservative physician who was instrumental to the creation of the 2022 ivermectin regulation. She has inked agreements with pharmacies throughout the state empowering them to promote the drug.
Tennessee’s regulation permits pharmacies to dispense ivermectin and not using a particular prescription for every affected person, by means of a “collaborative pharmacy practice agreement” with a health care provider who supplies what’s functionally a pre-written, nonspecific prescription for all potential clients.
In podcast interviews, Sibley has mentioned she has made as many as 40 of those agreements with Tennessee pharmacies, which she mentioned ahead her the paperwork on every ivermectin buyer. Earlier than promoting the drug, pharmacies are required to ask clients questions on medical circumstances and drugs that would trigger issues if taken with ivermectin. Afterward, the collaborating doctor additionally is anticipated to obtain a file for every one who purchases ivermectin.
“We literally have folks coming from all over the world to get our ivermectin,” Sibley mentioned on the Frequent Sense MD podcast in February 2025. “As the collaborator for these pharmacies, I get every person’s sheet.”
“They’re from every state,” she mentioned. “They’re from Canada. They’re from Europe.”
Sibley didn’t reply to requests for remark.
KFF Well being Information has independently confirmed that Sibley signed agreements with at the very least 10 pharmacies. The agreements say pharmacists shall dispense ivermectin solely in Tennessee, the place Sibley is licensed, though a kind of pharmacies mentioned family and friends in Tennessee can “facilitate sending the medication.”
Hughey, the Tennessee pharmacist, mentioned Sibley had prescribing agreements able to go when the regulation was enacted. He credited her with advancing ivermectin gross sales all through the state.
“Had Dr. Sibley not stepped in and really pushed forward, there’s no telling how hard it would have been,” Hughey mentioned. “It would have been a lot less widespread.”
Sibley additionally works with Kids’s Well being Protection, the Kennedy-founded group that has turn into one of many nation’s most influential anti-vaccine organizations. In podcasts, Sibley has referred to the covid vaccine as a “bioweapon” and “the most toxic substance that’s ever been produced.”
Individually, she testified earlier than Tennessee legislators in 2024 about an alleged plot to alter the climate and block daylight. The New York Occasions then included her in a narrative about conspiracy theorists.
Sibley has mentioned in podcast interviews that she was instructed by God to deal with covid sufferers. She mentioned she has advocated for ivermectin ever since.
“God agrees with what I’m doing,” Sibley mentioned in 2023 on the podcast Tomi Lahren Is Fearless, which is recorded in Nashville. “I wake up every day and I say: ‘Yes, sir. I’m reporting to duty.’”
In legislative and authorities hearings all through 2022, Sibley testified that she had handled round 4,400 folks with ivermectin, together with some Tennessee lawmakers, all with out taking fee. Sibley described ivermectin as “a wonder drug” and mentioned making it extra accessible “would help me to save lives.”
“I’ve taken bucketloads of this stuff myself,” Sibley mentioned in a single such listening to. “I feel like I’ve been a good test subject.”
Sibley has mentioned she dispenses ivermectin utilizing therapy pointers developed by Paul Marik, who in 2020 co-founded the Impartial Medical Alliance, a medical group that has promoted ivermectin as an efficient therapy for covid, flu, RSV, and most cancers.
Some Tennessee pharmacies now comply with these protocols, too. The protocols advocate sufferers take 1.5 to 5 instances as a lot ivermectin as is often prescribed to deal with parasites, with the dose taken for days or even weeks as a substitute of simply as soon as.
Marik and different ivermectin proponents sued the FDA in 2022 after it discouraged the usage of the drug for covid by tweeting: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” The company settled the lawsuit with no admission of wrongdoing and deleted the viral tweet in 2024.
The American Board of Inside Drugs has revoked Sibley’s and Marik’s board certifications however declined to elucidate why. Sibley nonetheless holds a Tennessee medical license; Marik relies in Virginia and isn’t licensed. Sibley and Marik every opposed the inner medication board’s actions.
In response to questions from KFF Well being Information, Marik, by means of an Impartial Medical Alliance spokesperson, mentioned medical science advantages from “open discussion of ideas and treatments.”
“Many independent doctors have reported that treatments like Ivermectin, in conjunction with traditional treatments, are showing promise. These ideas should be explored,” alliance spokesperson Lynne Kristensen mentioned in an emailed assertion.
Marik testified in favor of Tennessee’s ivermectin laws in 2022, telling lawmakers that it’s obligatory as a result of folks would in any other case purchase animal-grade ivermectin in stronger dosages meant for livestock.
“They’re buying ivermectin from farm stores. We don’t know the quality,” Marik mentioned at a March 2022 legislative listening to on the Tennessee invoice. “So this would prevent that from happening.”
Tennessee Does Not Observe Its Ivermectin Market
Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, and Texas enacted comparable legal guidelines in 2025, and laws that makes ivermectin accessible with out the necessity for a health care provider go to has been launched or debated in at the very least 24 different states, based on a KFF Well being Information evaluation. Which means half the nation might be following Tennessee down an unlit path, as a result of nobody is aware of the complete scope of its ivermectin market.
Tennessee doesn’t successfully monitor which pharmacies provide ivermectin this manner, and the state authorities has been unable to supply some foundational paperwork that pharmacies are legally required to file earlier than they promote the drug, based on a KFF Well being Information investigation.
Medical doctors and pharmacies are required by regulation to inform the Tennessee Division of Well being once they signal agreements that enable ivermectin to be distributed with out patient-specific prescriptions, though it isn’t clear whether or not this constantly happens.
In response to a KFF Well being Information public data request for these ivermectin notifications filed by pharmacies, the company over three months produced data from solely 12 pharmacies, half of which have agreements with Sibley. The company mentioned it didn’t find data associated to at the very least 13 others that KFF Well being Information has recognized as promoting ivermectin with out requiring particular person prescriptions.
Division of Well being spokesperson Dean Flener mentioned the company wouldn’t reply questions on whether or not or the way it regulates ivermectin or the pharmacies that distribute it.
Tennessee has mentioned it doesn’t monitor how a lot of the drug is bought within the state, and the quantity will not be nicely captured by federal or insurance coverage information sources. That’s as a result of the drug is usually bought at compounding pharmacies, which make custom-made drugs that aren’t FDA-approved and barely coated by insurance coverage. Drugmakers and wholesalers didn’t reply to questions on how a lot ivermectin they provide to pharmacies within the state.
Even the Impartial Medical Alliance, considered one of ivermectin’s greatest cheerleaders, says it doesn’t understand how a lot is flowing by means of Tennessee.
States are getting stress from clinicians ”who’ve had success with the usage of ivermectin,” mentioned IMA President Joseph Varon, a doctor based mostly in Houston. “That’s what happened in Texas, and that’s what happened in Tennessee.”
‘An Unproven, Potentially Unsafe Drug’
As soon as signed by Tennessee Gov. Invoice Lee, the state’s ivermectin regulation took impact instantly — even earlier than the state’s doctor and pharmacy licensing boards created guidelines to information the method, which Tennessee regulation additionally requires.
Some board members had been shocked.
“We’re talking about an unproven, potentially unsafe drug,” Shant Garabedian, a health care provider on the state’s Board of Osteopathic Examination, mentioned of off-label ivermectin use throughout a 2022 assembly. “It’s already law. Somehow it passes without our sort of input.”
In conferences that adopted, at the very least 5 members of Tennessee’s medical boards voiced considerations concerning the regulation past security and efficacy. Some mentioned pharmacists might overcharge for a drug that usually prices pennies per capsule. Some nervous {that a} loosely regulated, cash-based ivermectin market may entice shady characters, particularly as a result of the regulation additionally shields prescribers from ivermectin-related civil lawsuits.
“This involves no clinical engagement,” Melanie Blake, then-president of the Board of Medical Examiners, mentioned throughout a 2022 assembly. “If they’re exempt from liability as well, I hate to think of things that individuals could do just to make money, but this would be one.”
The boards ultimately enacted rules affirming that ivermectin might be distributed with none analysis. Board members mentioned the regulation left them no alternative.
“This is more of a situation where, legally, the legislature has decided for us,” John McGraw, one other board member, mentioned in a 2023 assembly. “This has sort of tied our hands in a lot of ways.”
The primary recognized sale beneath the brand new regulation occurred in Might 2022 in Sibley’s house of Johnson Metropolis, a metropolis of about 74,000 folks in northeastern Tennessee. In accordance with a information launch, Sibley entered right into a collaborative settlement with pharmacist Josh Harrison at The Compounding Lab, which dispenses medicine for folks and animals.
The primary buyer was Bernadette Pajer, an anti-vaccine activist who has labored with Kids’s Well being Protection. In a 2024 episode of the Nashville podcast Rebunked With Scott Armstrong, Pajer mentioned Sibley was a medical adviser for the group and described the primary ivermectin sale.
“On that day, she was the doctor, he was the pharmacist making the sale, and I was the first customer,” Pajer mentioned. “So that was pretty cool.”
Ivermectin pharmacies have unfold throughout the state. Within the suburbs of Nashville, Roman Pharmacy advertises ivermectin on at the very least 4 billboards alongside Interstate 65, and its web site is usually centered on the drug. Outdoors Knoxville, Contemporary Pharmacy permits clients to order ivermectin for a number of sclerosis and Parkinson’s illness, or “to use it to detoxify.”
Roman Pharmacy didn’t reply to interview requests. Contemporary Pharmacy declined an interview.
In Chattanooga, the Drugs Counter pharmacy says on its web site that ivermectin must be taken “only as prescribed by your healthcare provider.” And but the pharmacy sells a few of Tennessee’s most potent ivermectin accessible and not using a prescription from a health care provider — as much as 21 instances as robust as a normal pill, for almost $19 per capsule — based on the KFF Well being Information evaluation.
Himanshu Patel, Drugs Counter’s head pharmacist, declined to be interviewed. He mentioned in an e mail that the pharmacy operates in a “very competitive market” and that its strongest drugs had been beneath the utmost dose for people evaluated by the FDA for security functions.
After which there may be Compound Rx, which, along with promoting ivermectin in its retailer, has constructed an internet site in preparation to ship buy-one-get-one-free drugs nationwide. The location, which is in “test mode,” can’t at the moment make any gross sales. It additionally asks clients how they heard concerning the pharmacy, with a dropdown menu of solutions that options right-wing figures corresponding to Donald Trump Jr., Steve Bannon, Laura Ingraham, and Kevin Sorbo.
Who will not be listed as an choice? Your physician.
Hughey, the Compound Rx pharmacist, mentioned he wasn’t concerned with the web site, which he mentioned might by no means launch.
The extremely concentrated drugs are a priority for Tennessee state Sen. Richard Briggs, who worries lawmakers have created a “dangerous” ivermectin market rife with “misleading advertising” about what the drug can truly do.
Briggs, who’s a surgeon and the one Republican who voted towards the ivermectin invoice in 2022, mentioned he deliberate to introduce laws to rein within the sale of ivermectin when lawmakers reconvene in 2027.
“But it may be a hard sell, because with the anti-vaxxers and some of these other folks,” Briggs mentioned. “We don’t base a lot of things that we do on science, data, or facts. To a lot of folks in the legislature, the facts are just an inconvenience.”
‘Enough Trouble With Ivermectin’
Lawmakers in at the very least seven states have thought-about ivermectin laws this yr, together with Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. If enacted, these payments would enable folks to acquire ivermectin with out a person prescription, like in Tennessee, or make it accessible over-the-counter.
Kennedy praised such laws at an occasion in Texas final August.
“I think it’s a really good bill,” he mentioned of Texas’ ivermectin laws, based on The Texas Tribune. “I think Americans should have the choice.”
However proponents have hit roadblocks. A Utah invoice didn’t advance out of the state Home this yr. In Oklahoma, some lawmakers have put up a combat.
“I’m a scientific person. I need to see some research and some data that shows what we’re treating,” Oklahoma state Rep. Cynthia Roe, a Republican and nurse practitioner who opposes the state’s ivermectin invoice, mentioned in an interview. “And God forbid somebody start giving it to their kid.”
Again in Tennessee, one of many medical boards that was alarmed when the regulation was enacted in 2022 began to distance itself from ivermectin altogether.
In January, the Board of Medical Examiners grappled with learn how to punish Ricky Lee Jackson, a health care provider who was licensed in Tennessee and had been sanctioned and fined by Washington state’s medical fee. The Tennessee board usually mirrors punishments from different states with out hesitation. However the Washington case centered on Jackson prescribing ivermectin for covid, which in Tennessee now not required a affected person to see a health care provider.
After a debate, the board voted to reprimand Jackson — however instructed its employees to make sure the general public file made no point out of ivermectin.
“This board has been in enough trouble with ivermectin,” member Keith Anderson mentioned, based on a assembly recording. “Maybe we ought to just leave that out.”
Nashville Public Radio journalist Blake Farmer and Tennessee Lookout reporter Adam Friedman contributed to this report.
