The Discovery of Fenbendazole’s Efficacy in Cancer Treatment, and other critical information

Riggins’ Mice and Fenbendazole – The Rest of the Cancer Story

BS”D

Justus R. Hope MD wrote the following fascinating article on July 23. If you know someone with cancer, please share it.

I would like to mention that thank G-d, we have a very active information/support WhatsApp group for cancer alternative treatment. Please email me (truth613@substack.com) for the link, if you know someone who could benefit.

The contact for the Care Oncology Clinic (COC) which is mentioned in this article is (800) 392-1353, and their website is https://careoncology.com/.

Also, if you would like the PDF of Dr. Paul Mario’s cancer treatments monograph, or the fascinating PDF of a Fenbendazole-plus Cancer Protocol by the Fenbendazole – Cancer Support Group, please email me. I urge anyone with cancer to find a practitioner experienced in alternative treatments and to be under their care.

Dr. Justus R. Hope’s article:

Fenbendazole Mice Study

By now, everyone should know the serendipitous story of Dr. Gregory Riggins and his legendary mice, those rodents whose cancers disappeared following a pinworm treatment. The drug that treated their worms also stopped their brain tumors.

This antiparasitic drug, Fenbendazole (FBZ), and its human counterpart, Mebendazole (MBZ), have been tested and used successfully against various aggressive cancers. In particular, the METRIC trial used MBZ as part of its patented 4-Drug COC cocktail that essentially doubled the survival of GBM patients.

But what many readers need to learn are the details of how this all began and what the first study showed following this chance discovery. Sometimes legends evolve, and it helps to examine the precise details to uncover factual inconsistencies that may lead to improved scientific insights.

Three researchers from Johns Hopkins published the first “Riggins Mice” study in a Veterinary Journal on November 1, 2008. However, Johns Hopkins’ “Doorway to Discovery” article dates the Riggins’ mice back to a Hopkins Laboratory in 2009. Drs. Gao, Dang, and Watson submitted their article for publication on May 8, 2008, a full year earlier. Their study was accepted for publication on July 16, 2008, and published in the Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Science. This fact suggests the date in “Doorway to Discovery” was off by at least one year.

The Gao et al. study was entitled “Unexpected Antitumorigenic Effect of Fenbendazole when Combined with Supplementary Vitamins.”  And this is where it gets interesting. The study found that FBZ did not shrink the tumors by itself. Only when FBZ was combined with Vitamins did the cancers shrink. Even more interesting was that without the Vitamins, the FBZ seemed to stimulate tumor growth.

The researchers compared four groups of mice in a study designed to mimic what Riggins initially observed in his pinworm mice. But because the Riggins’ mice also received supplemental vitamins in their chow, Gao and colleagues had three study groups, a Vitamins + FBZ group, an FBZ without Vitamins group, and a Vitamins-only group. These three groups were compared to a control group without Vitamins or FBZ.

Tumors in the FBZ-only group were measured at almost twice the size of the control group, while the smallest tumors at a fraction of the control groups’ size were found in the FBZ + Vitamins group. The Vitamins only group was nearly indistinguishable in size from the controls. Something in the Vitamins + FBZ seemed to augment the antitumor effect of FBZ alone, but what?

What needed to be clarified is which Vitamins were responsible for the tumor inhibition.

The authors wrote, “Neither diet supplemented with vitamins alone nor fenbendazole alone caused altered tumor growth as compared with that of controls. However, the group supplemented with both vitamins and fenbendazole exhibited significant inhibition of tumor growth. The mechanism for this synergy is unknown and deserves further investigation.”

Their Table 1 gave the list. Vitamins B, D, K, E and folate. The researchers noted that Vitamin E causes antitumor and antimetastatic effects by suppressing NFkB. They also stated that folate and Vitamin B are associated with lower rates of colorectal cancer in women. They wrote that rather than “reducing genetic instability,” some antioxidants “may exert their antitumor effects through reducing hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF).”

Today, the weight of evidence shows that cancer is not a genetic disease through somatic mutations but a metabolic disease, as Dr. Paul Marik and Dr. Thomas Seyfriend have explained. And today, through Dr. Paul Marik’s recently published Cancer Care Monograph on repurposed drugs and supplements, we know that Vitamins and antioxidants play a key role in both the prevention and treatment of cancer – with Vitamin D in particular – the most important.

Ranked #4 on the Marik Monograph, Vitamin D has a mountain of evidence to support its anticancer effects. Like Gao and associates found with Vitamin E, Dr. Marik notes Vitamin D also suppresses the NFkB Pathway. It also inhibits WNT signaling, inhibiting Cancer Stem Cells, the “missing link” in the current standard of care. Standard of care, which typically includes surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, unfortunately, does the opposite, stimulating the growth of CSCs resulting in more rather than fewer metastases.

Drs. Gao, Dang, and Watson stumbled on some essential principles. One repurposed drug or supplement may be ineffective, while a combination may work. The METRICS trial used a 4-Drug cocktail for GBM and achieved an average survival of 27.1 months against a control group of 12 months.

Dr. Marik points out in his Monograph that Vitamin D works against cancer synergistically with Metformin. He reports, “1,25-(OH)2D3 and Metformin have additive/synergistic antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects in colon carcinoma and other types of cells [2].” In addition, Vitamin D works synergistically with added benefits when combined with conventional chemotherapy [2]. “Zeichner et al demonstrated that use of Vitamin D during neoadjuvant chemotherapy in HER2-positive nonmetastatic breast cancer was associated with improved disease-free survival (HR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.15-0.88; p=0.026) [1].

Marik writes, “Vitamin D supplementation is likely beneficial in most cancers, but particularly in patients with breast, colorectal, gastric, esophagus, lung, and prostate cancer as well as those with lymphomas and melanoma.”

As almost all patients with cancer are severely Vitamin D deficient, Dr. Marik recommends high loading doses followed by titration aiming for a level between 55 and 90 ng/ml. And he points out that when doses of greater than 8,000 IU /day are taken, it is best to include Vitamin K2 as well. For these reasons, it is best to consult Dr. Marik’s Cancer Care Monograph when asking your physician to add Vitamin D to your treatment regimen.

When treating terminal cancer with repurposed drugs, more is almost always better. While the 4-Drug COC cocktail doubled GBM survival from one to two years, Dr. Ben Williams treated his GBM with more than 30 repurposed drugs and supplements and remains alive more than 25 years later.

Joe Tippens, the anecdotal case of Small Cell Lung Cancer, cured his terminal cancer after using a cocktail of FBZ, CBD Oil, Curcumin, and Vitamin E. If Tippens had used FBZ alone, would we still know his name? Would he have still experienced the near-miraculous clearing of his widespread metastatic cancer? I think not.

Where does this leave us? Additional research on which Vitamins caused the mysterious synergy with FBZ has never been done. The reason is that Big Pharma is never interested in researching which Vitamins can cure cancer. Only the drugs concern them – potentially patentable drugs, to be precise. And FBZ can be packaged into a nanoparticle that could lead to a patent, so naturally, these studies exist. But forget about Big Pharma and the legacy media ever admitting that cancer can be treated with Vitamins.

As Dr. Pierre Kory has stated many times, Big Pharma suppressed the benefits of Vitamin D for years, as they had an agenda to discredit it, much like they had a plan to discredit Ivermectin.

When it comes to Vitamins curing cancer, that is where the Medical Boards like to step in and use terms like Quack and Snake Oil. Vitamins are a dirty word in the Cancer Community. But as the study by Dr. Gao and associates clearly shows, the FBZ can only work its magic with the Vitamins added.

Gao and colleagues advised further research to determine which Vitamins were responsible for helping FBZ shrink the tumors. They also noted that the tumor inhibition was less than observed during the initial Riggins’ mice observation, and they attributed this to nearly expired vitamin concentrates.

“Results were less dramatic than the total inhibition initially observed, perhaps due to inadvertent inclusion of lower vitamin concentrations during the study than during the initial observation. Vitamins in prepared diets deteriorate with time, and the study diet containing both vitamins and fenbendazole was within a week of its expiration date (6 months after manufacture) at the time of this study. In contrast, the diet used during the initial observation was newly ordered to treat the pinworm outbreak, and so was likely more recently manufactured, with higher vitamin concentrations. Unfortunately, expiration dates during the initial observation were not recorded and vitamin concentrations in the diet were not analyzed independently so this theory cannot be confirmed.”

However, since that one 2008 study, I could not find any follow-up investigations that sought to answer these questions. Perhaps now would be a good time for such additional research when repurposed drug combinations are beginning to shine brighter than anyone ever imagined. Now is the time to insist that your Oncologist pay close attention to the Marik Monograph and insist that as many of those on the Top 20 be added as clinically feasible. While Vitamin D ranks #4, FBZ/MBZ is closely behind at #7.

Interestingly, PolitiFact, our ever-vigilant Guardian of Health, conducted a “Fact Check” of Fenbendazole. The Poynter Institute runs PolitiFact, that Bastion of Freedom and Globalization, that same organization, which is partnered with The Washington Post, the same one that accepted a $382,000 donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the same institution dedicated to saving every man, woman, and child from the scourge of cancer.

Please pardon my sarcasm.

What journalist Thomas Kertscher, writing for PolitiFact, found was stunning. He is the same Thomas Kertscher who covered Sports for the Associated Press and wrote books on Al McGuire and Brett Favre. In addition to Sports, he seems to have an uncanny understanding of malignant tumors and what works and what doesn’t.

Thomas Kertscher wrote in his “Fact Check” on February 20, 2023, that there is “no proof the dog deworming drug fenbendazole can cure human cancer.”

Specifically, Kertscher observed, “The news story said that although Tippens credited Fenbendazole with ridding him of cancer, he also took an experimental cancer-fighting drug and supplements.”

To Kertscher’s credit, this statement inadvertently supports FBZ as a combination drug that can fight cancer. Tippens notes that of the 1100 patients in the trial, he alone survived, so he did not believe the experimental drug was the reason. In light of this, we can surmise that the supplements, which included Vitamin E and Curcumin may be the deciding factors.

Indeed, Dr. Marik, with an H-Index of 110, one of the most highly ranked academics, has also written about FBZ in a bit more detail than our esteemed Politifact Sports Writer. And Dr. Marik writes about this group of drugs called benzimidazoles which contain both MBZ and FBZ. Thus FBZ and MBZ can be discussed interchangeably in terms of their mechanisms of action against cancer. Marik writesthey “decrease the activity of the Hedgehog pathway, which is common to melanomas, lung cancers, ovarian cancers and colorectal cancer.”

This fact is important because the Hedgehog pathway stimulates Cancer Stem Cells and metastases. Thus, suppressing it is of crucial importance. In addition, the benzimidazoles promote apoptosis (cancer cell death) through the caspase system. These drugs inhibit microtubule formation and block cancer cell metabolism through glycolysis and OXPHOS.

In addition, they can sensitize cancer cells to conventional therapy, thus enhancing their combined antitumor potential. They further improve the immune system’s activity by destroying tumor-associated Macrophages.

Finally, three cases following the use of FBZ have been reported in the peer-reviewed medical literature. Dr. Ryan Chiang and colleagues published “Fenbendazole Enhancing Anti-Tumor Effect: A Case Series, " reviewing three case histories of GU cancer, including two with metastatic disease. All three cases added FBZ, and all three experienced complete responses.

In the first case, a 63-year-old male with flank pain and metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma experienced progression despite surgery and chemotherapy. Following treatment with additional chemotherapy and FBZ 1 gram three times per week for several months, there was complete resolution of a 5.2 cm renal mass and shrinkage of the metastases in his pancreas and iliac crest. Serial imaging over ten months showed no evidence of recurrence or metastatic disease.

In the second case, a 72-year-old male with metastatic bladder cancer with metastases to the brain and lung showed progressive disease. He achieved near complete response from chemotherapy until he developed an aortic lymph node metastasis that grew to 2.0 by 1.5 cm. Following treatment with FBZ, Vitamin E, Curcumin, and CBD oil, there was a complete response with shrinkage of the metastasis down to 0.5 by 0.5 cm.

In the third case, a 63-year-old female developed non-metastatic bladder cancer. After chemotherapy with Methotrexate, Doxorubicin, Cisplatin, and FBZ 1 gram three times weekly, she experienced complete resolution of the 7.5 cm bladder mass.

Dr. Chiang and associates wrote, "FBZ belongs to a class of microtubule-destabilizing agents known collectively as the benzimidazoles.”

“The ability to disrupt microtubule polymerization to induce mitotic arrest and promote apoptosis is a feature shared with the vinca alkaloids. Proposed mechanisms for FBZ’s antitumor properties include inhibition of proteasomal activity, p53 activation, cytotoxicity via tubulin disruption, and downregulation of glycolytic enzymes crucial for cancer cell survival [3,6]. Other benzimidazoles such as albendazole possess antitumor properties through influencing the HIF-1-alpha pathway, which is critical for VEGF expression and certain aspects of glycolysis [7].”

This explanation is essentially the same combination of action that Dr. Marik noted in his monograph, and it bears repeating that the overwhelming weight of evidence shows cancer to be a metabolic, not a genetic disease. Thus, by disrupting both glycolysis and Oxidative Phosphorylation, cancer may not be able to create enough energy to survive in the presence of FBZ.

Blocking additional pathways through the addition of other repurposed drugs and supplements adds to the benefit of the standard treatments of chemotherapy and surgery and, in many cases, eliminates the primary tumor and metastases, thereby curing the cancer.

This synergy may explain why Riggins’ Mice experienced resolution of the brain tumors following pin-worm treatment. It turns out that FBZ was only part of the story, as the mice also received various Vitamins and supplements.

It may also explain why Joe Tippens was the sole survivor of the 1100-patient clinical trial at MD Anderson using a checkpoint inhibitor. Perhaps the combination of checkpoint inhibitor + FBZ did the trick.

Indeed, Dr. Chiang and colleagues had a similar thought regarding Case #1, the gentleman with metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma. He had been treated with an immune checkpoint inhibitor, nivolumab, which typically requires six months to notice an overall 24% response rate. In his case, with the addition of FBZ, a complete radiographic response was seen in only one month on checkpoint inhibitor therapy.

The authors wrote, “It is possible that our first patient with mRCC would have achieved a significant response to nivolumab alone without FBZ. However, given the complete radiologic response on only 1 month of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, it also seems likely that FBZ played a notable role in inducing remission. This is supported by the fact that our patient has remained in extended remission while only on FBZ for nearly a year without further administration of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.”

I would agree. Adding repurposed drugs like benzimidazoles can dramatically improve the effectiveness of standard therapy, whether the mechanism is by suppressing CSCs or cancer metabolism. Regardless, it pays to block the cancer from as many different pathways as possible, and the more repurposed drugs and supplements – with your doctor’s careful supervision and approval – especially when dealing with metastatic disease, the better.

1.      Zeichner SB, Koru-Sengul T, Shah N, Liu Q, Markward NJ, Montero AJ, et al. Improved clinical outcomes associated with vitamin D supplementation during adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with HER2+ nonmetastatic breast cancer. Clin. Breast Cancer. 2015;15(1):e1-11.

2.     Abu El Maaty MA, Wolfl S. Effects of 1,25(OH)2 D3 on Cancer Cells and Potential Applications in Combination with Established and Putative Anti-Cancer Agents. Nutrients. 2017;9

3.      Dogra N, Kumar A, Mukhopadhyay T (2018) Fenbendazole acts as a moderate microtubule destabilizing agent and causes cancer cell death by modulating multiple cellular pathways.Sci Rep 8: 11926.

4.      Gao P, Dang CV, Watson J (2008) Unexpected antitumorigenic effect of fenbendazole when combined with supplementary vitamins.J Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci 47: 37-40.

5.      Duan Q, Liu Y, Rockwell S (2013) Fenbendazole as a potential anticancer drug.Anticancer Res 33: 355-362.

6.      Dogra N, Mukhopadhyay T (2012) Impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway by methyl N-(6-phenylsulfanyl-1H-benzimidazol-2-yl) carbamate leads to a potent cytotoxic effect in tumor cells: A novel antiproliferative agent with a potential therapeutic implication.J Biol Chem 287: 30625-30640.

7.      Zhou F, Du J, Wang J (2017) Albendazole inhibits HIF-1α-dependent glycolysis and VEGF expression in non-small cell lung cancer cells.Mol Cell Biochem 428: 171-178.

Link to Justus R. Hope MD’s original article:

Riggins’ Mice and Fenbendazole – The Rest of the Cancer Story