Fenbendazole

That fenbendazole, a benzimidazole dewormer sold for dogs, cures late-stage cancer by disrupting the microtubules cancer cells need to divide.

Traced to Joe Tippens, a US man diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer in 2016 who took fenbendazole alongside an experimental immunotherapy trial and later reported being cancer-free. His blog went viral in 2019. The immunotherapy trial he was enrolled in is rarely mentioned in retellings. The story now sustains a large Facebook and Reddit community trading protocols.

Paraphrased summaries of publicly circulating reports, not verbatim quotes from identified individuals. Unverified by definition.

• “Stopped chemo to do this properly. Felt better for six weeks, then much worse. Back in hospital now and the disease has progressed. Posting so people see the other outcome.”

  reported deteriorationReported 2023

  Protocol-group posts of the kind that surface less often than success stories

• “My father took it for eight months alongside his chemotherapy. His markers came down. We do not know which one did it and neither does his doctor, but we are not stopping either.”

  reported improvement, concurrent treatmentReported 2022

  Reddit and Facebook protocol groups

• “Diagnosed with stage 4 small-cell lung cancer and told to expect months. Started the dewormer protocol, and at the three-month scan the tumours were gone. My oncologist could not explain it.”

  reported remissionReported 2019

  Widely reshared blog and Facebook group posts, the origin story of the protocol

Benzimidazoles do interfere with microtubule formation, which is a real anticancer mechanism used by approved drugs like the taxanes. That makes the hypothesis worth testing, and a small number of researchers say so. What does not exist is a human trial. Every widely shared success story involves either concurrent conventional treatment, an unverified diagnosis, or no follow-up. Case reports of liver injury from self-administered fenbendazole have appeared in the medical literature since 2021.