What the Tippens protocol is and where it came from
Joe Tippens's story is probably the internet's best-known case of a person reaching for a drug meant for animals. In 2016 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. By early 2017 the disease had spread (metastasised) throughout his body and doctors gave him only months to live.
In desperation, on the advice of a veterinarian friend, he began taking fenbendazole — the cheap, readily available agent used to deworm pets and livestock (known among other names as Panacur C). Some months later imaging showed no trace of the cancer. Tippens described his combination of supplements on a blog, and so the “Tippens protocol” was born. It became hugely popular worldwide, and in some Asian countries the drug briefly disappeared from the shelves.
A cool head is needed here, though. Oncologists and critics point to a crucial fact: at the same time, Joe Tippens was taking part in a clinical trial of a modern drug (pembrolizumab, known as Keytruda) that spurs the immune system to fight cancer. In the view of evidence-based medicine it is that modern therapy, not the antiparasitic, that most probably accounts for his recovery. In other words: one spectacular story is not proof that fenbendazole worked. Even so, hundreds of similar patient accounts prompted scientists to look at the drug more closely.
How fenbendazole would act on cells
Why should a worming drug affect cancer at all? Fenbendazole strikes at the very mechanism by which cells divide.
Both cancer cells and parasites rely on small structures called microtubules. These are tiny tubes forming the cell's internal “skeleton” — without it a cell cannot divide and multiply. Fenbendazole breaks that skeleton up: it binds to microtubules and prevents them being built. If a cancer cell cannot build that scaffolding it cannot divide, and that may trigger its “self-destruction” (apoptosis).
Interestingly, established hospital drugs work on a very similar principle — some classic chemotherapies (paclitaxel, for instance). Advocates of fenbendazole claim that in laboratory studies it hits the proteins of cancer cells harder than those of healthy cells, which is why they call it “gentler chemo”. It is also suggested that the drug may make it harder for cancer cells to take up sugar (glucose), cutting off their main fuel. It is worth remembering that these are still test-tube hypotheses, not proven efficacy in humans.
The accompanying supplements in the protocol
Taking fenbendazole is, on Tippens's account, only part of the whole — the rest is said to be additional supplements that work with the drug. The original scheme lists, among others:
- Curcumin (a turmeric constituent, in a better-absorbed form, with pepper): said to act against inflammation. Turmeric itself is poorly absorbed, and adding black pepper is supposed to improve that. Curcumin's role is said to be damping inflammation, which advocates argue makes it harder for tumours to build new blood vessels.
- CBD oil (from hemp): taken under the tongue. Besides easing pain and improving sleep, it acts on the body's endocannabinoid system, which takes part in regulating the life and death of cells.
- Vitamin E: an antioxidant, a substance protecting cells from damage. In the protocol it is meant to shield healthy cells.
- Milk thistle: a herb described as liver support. Its constituent is said to prompt the liver to produce glutathione — a substance that helps it cope with the load from tumour breakdown and from metabolising the fenbendazole itself.
We deliberately give no doses or schedule here. This is not an instruction for self-administration but a description of a phenomenon — and the efficacy claims listed have not been confirmed in clinical trials.
How fenbendazole itself acts on the cell's “skeleton” is explained in our article Fenbendazole — how it works, and a critical picture of how test-tube results do (or do not) translate into treatment for people — and why large clinical trials count — is in Fenbendazole and ivermectin — a review of the laboratory research.
Sources
- Dogra N. et al. (2018), Fenbendazole acts as a moderate microtubule destabilizing agent and causes cancer cell death by modulating multiple cellular pathways, Scientific Reports — nature.com/articles/s41598-018-30158-6
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