Tag: Misconceptions

While searching for the real-world antibiotic doxycycline, many people encounter a fictional potion called Doxycide from the *Harry Potter* series. The similar naming can cause confusion, but the two substances could not be more different, with Doxycide's ingredients stemming from magical creatures and doxycycline's from pharmaceutical science.

Ivermectin, a drug with a Nobel Prize-winning history, is derived from a single type of soil bacterium, not from any food source. No foods naturally contain ivermectin; its presence in the food supply, typically in minute residual amounts in animal products, is a result of its use in livestock medicine.

While there is no single medication called a “happy pill,” the nickname is most famously associated with the antidepressant Prozac, or fluoxetine, which revolutionized mental health treatment in the late 1980s. This term, however, oversimplifies the complex and gradual process by which antidepressants work to manage conditions like depression and anxiety.