Nobody is 'smearing' the drug or even the people talking abot it.
They're saying 'stop telling the public about it because it's not approved yet and potentially dangerous'.
Whatever Donald Trump says - people believe. And they will go out in droves, self diagnose, self medicate, demand doctors prescribe them the 'cure' (when the doctor knows they shouldn't) etc..
And the amount of stupid conspiratorial memes that come up are pretty shocking. I avoid FB fro this reason and TikTok had a bunch of that for a bit, but I think they've shut down Ivermectin talk.
I quite like Joe Rogan, but he's not a doctor, and neither is his partner in goofydom Brett Weinstein, they have zero medical credibility on the issue, they should straight up not be talking about the drug.
If there is some kind of coverup, or there's hard evidence and the FDA is refusing to look at it, or if someone in Big Pharma bribed someone else ... then that's a story, but this is not that.
Oxford has just launched a trial for Ivermectin, and there are others. When the results come in, and if it works and is safe, then CNN et. al. will talk about it and parameterize it appropriately. We'll all hear about it pretty quickly.
The CDC can't stop Joe Rogan from talking about it and the haven't tried, but they can say 'STFU' until we have done the actual science, which is reasonable.