People Are Trading Cancer Treatments For Dewormers After Mel Gibson’s Viral Podcast Claim

Alien-built pyramids, the Loch Ness Monster, or a flat Earth can be great material for a fun little after-dinner debate. But when these wild theories jump from Bigfoot to cancer, the joke stops being funny.

Health conspiracies are not harmless fun… they are dangerous medical lies. In a fair world, spreading fake health advice would land you in jail. But in today’s world, the internet gives modern snake-oil salesmen a massive microphone and millions of gullible followers.

Worst of all, the people feeding these fires are often influential, powerful leaders or celebrities. This time, the spark came from Hollywood actor Mel Gibson.

He recently made headlines by claiming that two animal deworming drugs — ivermectin and fenbendazole — “cured” stage-four cancer in three of his friends. Naturally, fake-news websites lapped it up and started pushing horse pills as a secret cure Big Pharma doesn’t want you to know about. To cut through the viral hype and unpack the real science, Bored Panda consulted Dr. Ahmed Elbediwy, senior lecturer in cancer biology and clinical biochemistry at Kingston University.