We came across a post on X sharing a TikTok video on the supposed cancer-fighting abilities of a dog dewormer medication called Fenbendazole. Fenbendazole is a form of antiparasitic drug that is used to treat parasites in animals.
TikTok Doctors
In the TikTok video uploaded on X, a Dr Andrew Jones states that in 2016 a man named Joe Tippens who was diagnosed with a serious form of lung cancer – non-small cell lung cancer- consumed Fenbendazole and became completely cancer-free in a few months.
We conducted a reverse image search of the video and found a longer version of the same video, albeit uploaded by a different content creator. In the longer video, Jones expressed his initial skepticism over the success of Fenbendazole as a cancer cure. However, he claims that based on his research, studies on the use of Fenbendazole to cure cancer appear to be promising.
Jones, the creator behind the TikTok account called veterinarysecrets, posts content related to pet health and alternative medicine. He used to be a practicing veterinarian in British Columbia, Canada but resigned from practice after being found guilty of unprofessional conduct, by the College of Veterinarians of British Columbia, among others, for promoting alternative medicine for animals.
While the exact video that was uploaded on X is no longer on Jones’ TikTok account, we found a similar videoon his account relaying the story of how Tippens consumed Fenbendazole to cure his cancer.
We also found other similar videos on TikTok about consuming Fenbendazole to cure cancer, which appear to have originated from the anecdote by Tippens that Fenbendazole completely cured his cancer.
The Joe Tippens story
In an interview in 2019, Tippens informed news outlets that after being informed by doctors in 2017 that he would die from lung cancer, he cured his cancer by consuming Fenbendazole.
However, Tippens also admitted that he was taking supplements such as vitamin E on top of receiving conventional cancer treatment including chemotherapy. He was also enrolled in a clinical trial testing experimental cancer-fighting drugs. While Tippens claims that he was the only patient in the clinical trial to be cured of cancer, thereby proving the effectiveness of Fenbendazole, some researchers are skeptical of his claim. Due to the variety of treatments that Tippens sought, without a control group, his remission from cancer cannot be attributed completely to Fenbendazole.
Fenbendazole – does it really kill cancer cells?
There are ongoing studies and experiments on the effects of Fenbendazole and similar anti-parasitic drugs on cancer cells.
Following the interview by Joe Tippens, researchers at Seoul National University in South Korea sought to study if antiparasitic drugs such as Fenbendazole could potentially be used as anti-cancer medication.
Although they found that such drugs could have anti-cancer properties based on in vitro studies on cancer cells, there is a lack of evidence of its effectiveness on humans. Some clinical trials on cancer patients using albendazole or mebendazole, antiparasitic drugs similar to fenbendazole, did not prove effective in curing cancer. Further, the researchers cautioned against ingesting Fenbendazole as it has not been approved for human consumption by the US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency.
Subsequently, in a 2021 press release, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine in the US reported that mebendazole could slow down the progression of pancreatic cancer in mice. However, they cited the need to continue the research through human clinical trials to determine if mebendazole could be an alternative treatment for cancer.
There have been no clinical trials involving Fenbendazole due to concerns over its safety for human consumption. Therefore, there is insufficient evidence that Fenbendazole is a safe and effective treatment against cancer, and we rate the claim that Fenbendazole completely cures cancer as likely false.
