“The case of ivermectin should probably not come as a surprise as it repeats a pattern we saw earlier with hydroxychloroquine,” said Katherine Ognyanova, associate professor at the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University and co-lead of the COVID States Project, a joint research initiative of Northeastern University, Harvard University, Rutgers University and Northwestern University. “Experts are recommending that they not be used to treat COVID, while public figures with no medical training are promoting their use. So this is not a new scenario; we have seen this type of public health threat before. Even so, we may not be as well prepared to deal with it as we should be,” she said.