Cancer Myth in the News: "You Can't Get This Cancer Treatment in America" (Ivermectin)

A short clip from The Shawn Ryan Show podcast is titled "You Can't Get This Cancer Treatment in America." It has racked up more than a million views. Those views span Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. It was posted in mid-August. In it, longevity physician Dr. Craig Koniver tells host Shawn Ryan that ivermectin "can be used" against cancer. Ivermectin is the decades-old antiparasitic drug that became a flashpoint during the COVID-19 pandemic. Koniver also says American doctors, pharmacies and regulators stand in the way of patients getting it.

The clip is drawn from a longer, two-hour-plus conversation. In it, Ryan says he recently "bought a ton of ivermectin" while in Mexico. He says he did this after "reading about the anti-cancer" potential of the drug. Koniver runs a peptide and longevity practice in Charleston, South Carolina. He tells Ryan that pharmacies routinely refuse to fill ivermectin prescriptions, once cancer is listed as the reason. He also says roughly 90% of all medicine is prescribed "off-label" anyway. And he says California will "come after your medical license" if a doctor recommends a non-pharmaceutical option to a cancer patient.

Each of those claims is checkable against public federal and state records.

Claim: ivermectin is an emerging cancer treatment

Asked "is it true this is an anti-cancer drug?" Koniver answers, "Yeah, I think it can be used for that," citing his own clinical impression that patients "seem to get better faster."

The FDA has approved ivermectin, in specific doses and forms, for exactly two things in humans. Those are treating intestinal strongyloidiasis, and onchocerciasis (river blindness). The FDA has also approved topical versions of ivermectin for head lice and rosacea. The agency has been explicit that it "has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals." No cancer indication exists in any of its approvals.

That doesn't mean the idea has no research behind it. NCI's own clinical trials database lists an active study. It is called "Ivermectin in Combination With Balstilimab or Pembrolizumab in Patients With Metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer" (ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT05318469). It tests whether ivermectin can boost an approved immune drug. The patients in the study have breast cancer that has spread. It's real, government-registered research. It recruits patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

But it's a Phase I/II study. That is the earliest stage of human testing. It is designed mainly to find a safe dose. It also looks for early efficacy signals. An estimated 34 patients are enrolled. Results are not expected until around October 2026. Nothing about it supports ivermectin as a proven or approved cancer therapy today, anywhere. And the idea that this research is unavailable in America runs backward. It's happening in America. The National Cancer Institute lists it.

Koniver also names several other repurposed drugs he calls "worth exploring" against cancer. They are mebendazole, doxycycline, methylene blue and metformin. He describes doxycycline as something that "seems to kill cancer stem cells." Lab and animal studies have looked at anti-cancer mechanisms for some of these drugs. Real research exists on a few, including metformin. But none is FDA-approved to treat any cancer. And a "kills cancer cells in a dish" finding does not reliably predict that a drug will help real patients. The medical record is full of compounds that showed promise at the bench. Many of those failed, or caused harm, in real trials.

Claim: pharmacies and regulators are the obstacle — 90% of medicine is off-label anyway

Off-label prescribing means using an FDA-approved drug for a use the agency didn't review. It is legal and common in American medicine. The FDA itself says "health care professionals may choose to prescribe or use an approved human drug for an unapproved use when they judge that the unapproved use is medically appropriate." But real research puts the overall off-label rate far below 90%. Widely cited studies put off-label use at roughly 20% to 40% of outpatient prescriptions in general practice. That rate rises much higher in specific groups, such as pediatrics. A 90% figure doesn't match published estimates for prescribing as a whole.

A pharmacist who declines to fill an off-label prescription is also not evidence of a federal ban. This usually reflects a pharmacy's or insurer's own risk and payment rules, not an FDA ban on the drug.

Claim: California will pull a doctor's license for recommending a non-drug cancer treatment

California law says close to the opposite. Business and Professions Code Section 2234.1 states that a physician "shall not be subject to discipline... solely on the basis that the treatment or advice... is alternative or complementary medicine," including for cancer patients. A few rules apply. The physician must get informed consent. The physician must disclose conventional treatment options and their own qualifications. The physician must not delay a patient's access to conventional diagnosis. And the physician must not cause death or serious injury. State law creates a specific shield here. It protects doctors who offer complementary treatment alongside conventional care. It does not trigger discipline on its own. (Physicians have lost licenses over cancer treatment in California. But in the cases on the public record, boards cited fraud or gross negligence, not the mere act of discussing a non-drug option.)

The bigger picture

None of this means ivermectin or the other repurposed drugs are useless. Nor does it mean researchers are wrong to study them. Early-phase trials exist for a reason. A lab signal is worth checking in real patients, carefully and safely. What the record doesn't back up is the clip's central framing. That framing says a specific, effective cancer treatment sits just outside U.S. borders, held back by regulators, pharmacists or medical boards. The relevant research is happening inside the United States. It's early and unproven. And the regulatory and legal claims made about why patients supposedly can't access it don't match the facts. They don't match the FDA's own guidance, or the California law cited.

Anyone interested in a treatment discussed online, whether approved, experimental or otherwise, is best served by raising it with their own oncology team. They should also check its real trial status. That check can happen at ClinicalTrials.gov or NCI's clinical trials search.

Sources

• FDA, Ivermectin and COVID-19 — https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/ivermectin-and-covid-19
• NCI Drug Dictionary, ivermectin — https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-drug/def/ivermectin
• ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05318469 — https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05318469
• California Business and Professions Code Section 2234.1 — https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=2234.1&lawCode=BPC
• The Shawn Ryan Show, Episode #330, "Dr. Craig Koniver – The Godfather of Peptides"