What's With the Ivermectin Ads on Trump Broadcasts?

Ads for kits containing ivermectin and claiming to “make care great again” have been fixtures on broadcasts of Trump campaign events and rallies, including the recent and deeply problematic Madison Square Garden event.

These kits are from The Wellness Company, part of an array of MAGA-marketed businesses in the portfolio of Canadian aviation heir Foster Coulson, who was the subject of a recent investigation from CBC. In addition to hawking kits with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, The Wellness Company offers supplements backed by anti-vax cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough — which should not be reassuring.

While The Wellness Company’s operation was shut down in Coulson’s native Canada, the company and its collection of discredited doctors are still going strong in the US. Coulson has used these doctors’ work with the US Congress as validation, but they’ve worked with MAGA loyalist Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who has been routinely called out for his platforming of COVID-19 misinformation — including promotion of the failed early treatment drugs.

I wrote about The Wellness Company for WhoWhatWhy today. Previous WhoWhatWhy reporting, linked in the article, has dug into the early treatment movement’s rise in the US thanks to Trump and Johnson, and the deeply concerning research used to back up the drugs.

There has been minimal and very slow accountability for doctors who pushed them, and essentially none for the politicians who have. And it’s opened a market for people like Coulson.