In February 2023, an unlicensed veterinarian posted videos on social media platform TikTok that claimed a dog deworming medicine known as fenben had cured his stage four cancer. These videos were re-posted on Facebook and YouTube, where they gained widespread attention and led to the creation of “the Joe Tippens Protocol”. Although anthelmintics can be used to treat parasites in animals, no peer-reviewed study has ever found evidence they cure cancer in humans.
To understand the nature of the information received by patients regarding fenbendazole for cancer, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with 21 lung cancer patients who had self-administered fenbendazole as part of the Joe Tippens Protocol. The analysis of the interview results focused on the channels through which patients acquire general cancer information and fenbendazole information, the quality of the obtained information, and their perception toward it.
The results suggest that the fenbendazole information acquired by cancer patients is predominantly false and that they do not actively cross-check the information they receive through multiple media channels. This finding is consistent with previous studies showing that consumers use various media as complementary channels to confirm the truthfulness of a specific issue.
Moreover, the research findings reveal that fenbendazole has no radiosensitizing effect in vitro, and its treatment does not reduce the growth of unirradiated EMT6 tumor cells. The underlying mechanism of the antitumor effects of fenbendazole, which also overlaps with that of hypoxia-selective nitroheterocyclic cytotoxins and vinca alkaloids, appears to be related to its disruption of microtubule dynamics, p53 activation and interference with glucose metabolism (by down regulation of GLUT-4 transporters and hexokinase II, key glycolytic enzymes). This may explain why it preferentially eliminates cancer cells in vivo. fenben for cancer