Mel Gibson Tells Joe Rogan Ivermectin 'Cured' Stage Four Cancer

Actor Mel Gibson told podcaster Joe Rogan that three of his friends were cured of their stage four cancers after taking the drugs ivermectin and fenbendazole.

Ivermectin is a World Health Organization-approved drug usually taken to treat "river blindness, intestinal infection from threadworms, and other kinds of worm infections," according to Mayo Clinic. Fenbendazole is a broad spectrum benzimidazole anthelmintic, which Mayo Clinic says is also "used to treat infections caused by worms."

During Thursday's installment of popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, Gibson said that his friends with late-stage cancer teamed these drugs with other treatments and now don't have any sign of the disease "at all."

When contacted by Newsweek via email, a representative of Gibson declined to comment.

As they discussed their shared distrust of official medical advice, Gibson told Rogan: "I don't believe that there is anything that can afflict mankind that hasn't got a natural cure for it. I think that there has to be—it just makes sense to me. Now, I couldn't prove it, but I just believe that there's got to be something that cures things."

Offering Rogan a "good story," Gibson said: "I have three friends. All three of them had stage four cancer. All three of them don't have cancer right now at all—and they had some serious stuff going on."

"What did they take?" Rogan asked, prompting Gibson to state that they "took some … what you've heard they've taken."

"Ivermectin? Fenbendazole?" Rogan asked as Gibson nodded.

"They drank hydrochloride something or other," The Passion of the Christ star Gibson added.

"There's studies on this now where people have proven that," Rogan said, before Gibson interjected to mention people "methylene blue."

"Yeah, methylene blue, which was a fabric dye," Rogan responded. "It was a textile dye. Now they find it has profound effects on your mitochondria."

"This stuff works, man," screen star Gibson said.

According to Mayo Clinic, methylene blue is injected into patients to treat a methemoglobinemia, a condition that "occurs when the blood cannot deliver oxygen where it is needed in the body." There are clinical trials underway to use it as a mouth wash for "increasing oral intake and relieving pain in patients with oral mucositis related to cancer and/or cancer treatments."

Ivermectin and fenbendazole are being studied for any anticancer properties.

While ivermectin was developed for human use, it is also used as a "dewormer" in livestock. This led to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) writing on social media in August 2021: "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it."

The statement was made amid a wave of public skepticism around COVID-19 vaccines, with some people stating that they had used ivermectin to rid themselves of the virus. Rogan faced public criticism when he said that he had taken ivermectin to treat his COVID-19, alongside monoclonal antibodies, prednisone, azithromycin, a NAD drip and a vitamin drip.

His comments were criticized at the time by multiple sources, and CNN described the ivermectin as "horse dewormer," though the network's Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta later told Rogan on his podcast that CNN "shouldn't have said that" as it could have been deemed defamatory.

In 2024, the FDA agreed to delete and never republish several social-media posts suggesting that ivermectin is for animals and not humans. While the FDA still does not approve of using ivermectin to treat COVID-19, it settled a lawsuit brought by three doctors who sued the organization.