Several posts and videos have made the rounds on social media, claiming that fenbendazole, an antihelmintic drug used to treat parasitic worms in animals, can cure cancer. The claims are based on anecdotal evidence from Joe Tippens, an American man who says his lung cancer went into remission after he began taking fenbendazole on a vet’s recommendation.
The nonprofit organization Cancer Research UK tells Full Fact there’s insufficient evidence that fenbendazole can cure cancer, as the drug hasn’t gone through clinical trials to prove it’s safe and effective. The FDA has also told us that the drug isn’t approved to treat cancer.
A few studies have been conducted on animals using fenbendazole to treat their cancers, and the results were promising. However, anthelmintics aren’t approved for human use by Health Canada and don’t currently have a licence to treat humans with cancer, so turning these tests into a treatment is an ongoing process.
In a study of mice with a specific type of non-small cell lung cancer, researchers found that fenbendazole reduced tumor growth by stopping the growth of new cells and killing existing ones. The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports. The fenbendazole used in the study was dissolved in sterile, pyrogen-free physiologic saline and injected into the mice via i.p., and the mice were anesthetized with 100 mg/kg ketamine and 10 mg/kg xylazine and irradiated at 10 Gy with 250 kV x-rays, with a shielding to prevent exposure of critical normal tissues to radiation. fenbendazole for humans cancer