Fenbendazole, the Joe Tippens Protocol, and a Court Filing That Mentions 100 Children
A single Oklahoma man's 2019 blog post about a veterinary deworming drug curing his lung cancer spawned a global self-medication movement that shows no sign of slowing in 2026. It has since been picked up by a discredited former Alberta physician now under a permanent court injunction — one of whose own promotional posts, entered as evidence against him, claimed his "cancer program" had treated 7,500 patients, including 100 children.
The origin story
Joe Tippens, an Oklahoma businessman, was diagnosed with stage 4 small-cell lung cancer in 2016 and given roughly three months to live. While enrolled in a conventional clinical trial, he began separately taking fenbendazole — sold under brand names like Panacur and Safe-Guard as a deworming medication for dogs — along with a stack of over-the-counter supplements, after a veterinary researcher suggested it to him informally. His cancer went into remission, and in 2019 he published his story online. It spread to readers in more than 60 countries within weeks, and interest in fenbendazole for cancer has continued climbing every year since, including a fresh wave of attention as recently as this year.
⚠️ No clinical trial has ever tested this
As of 2026, no randomized controlled trial has evaluated the fenbendazole protocol Tippens popularized. The evidence base consists entirely of individual case reports, small uncontrolled case series, and preclinical laboratory studies showing the drug affects cancer cells in a dish — a very long way from showing it treats cancer in a person. Tippens was one of roughly 1,100 participants in the clinical trial he was simultaneously enrolled in; skeptics have pointed out that his trial drug, not the dewormer, is at least as plausible an explanation for his remission.
The evidence keeps collapsing under scrutiny
A case series describing three stage IV cancer patients who reportedly achieved remission using fenbendazole was published in Case Reports in Oncology in 2025 — and was retracted in January 2026. A retraction doesn't necessarily mean the underlying data was fabricated, but it does mean the paper's claims can no longer be treated as verified evidence, which hasn't stopped it from continuing to circulate on protocol-promotion websites that have not updated to reflect the retraction. Separately, documented case reports describe patients who self-administered fenbendazole based on social media claims and subsequently developed drug-induced liver injury, in at least one case with biopsy-confirmed hepatocellular damage.
Enter William Makis
A physician who no longer has a licence to practise
Viliam (William) Makis is a Canadian-trained nuclear medicine physician whose employment at Edmonton's Cross Cancer Institute was terminated in October 2016 following complaints of professional misconduct. His Alberta medical licence has been inactive since February 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic he promoted the false claim that vaccines caused a phenomenon he called "turbo cancer" and co-authored a widely criticized autopsy analysis claiming 74% of deaths examined were vaccine-related. He has since built what he calls the "world's largest Ivermectin cancer clinic," publicly recommending ivermectin, mebendazole, and fenbendazole to cancer patients despite holding no active licence to practise medicine anywhere in Canada.
In August 2025, Alberta's Court of King's Bench granted the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) an interim injunction barring Makis from representing himself as a licensed physician, from using the titles "doctor" or "oncologist," and from offering any cancer-related health advice to the public. On March 4, 2026, the court found him in contempt of that injunction and granted CPSA a permanent injunction on the same terms.
The 100 children
⚠️ From Makis's own promotional material, entered as court evidence
Court filings in the CPSA's contempt proceeding quote Makis's own public announcements promoting his unlicensed cancer practice. One, cited in the court's March 2026 decision, reads: "We have been helping cancer patients from around the world for 500 days now! From USA to Dubai to Australia, to Japan, to Brazil, to Montenegro… 7500 Cancer patients including 100 CHILDREN." This is not an allegation from a critic — it is Makis's own marketing, submitted as evidence of the very conduct the injunction was meant to stop. Neither fenbendazole nor ivermectin has any established pediatric oncology indication, and none of the case reports or case series claimed as supporting evidence for this protocol involve children.
A wider platform than any single practitioner
- 2019 Joe Tippens publishes his story; global search interest in fenbendazole spikes.
- 2024 Makis co-authors an ivermectin/mebendazole/fenbendazole "hybrid protocol" paper in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, a low-rigor outlet, promoted online as "peer-reviewed" without noting the journal's standing.
- January 2025 Actor Mel Gibson tells Joe Rogan, on a podcast episode that drew more than 7 million YouTube views, that friends of his used ivermectin and fenbendazole for cancer; Makis publicly claimed credit for treating one of them. Fact-checkers noted no evidence these patients forwent evidence-based treatment was disclosed either way, but the segment drove a fresh wave of public interest.
- August 2025 Alberta's CPSA obtains an interim injunction against Makis.
- January 2026 The 2025 fenbendazole case series is retracted.
- March 2026 Makis is found in contempt of the injunction; a permanent injunction is granted, restricting his ability to offer cancer advice or use physician titles under any circumstance.
Meanwhile Tippens himself remains an active public figure in the movement he started, marking ten years since his original diagnosis with conference appearances and a self-published book in 2025, continuing to update his protocol with new supplement additions as recently as this year.
Why this belongs on QuackeryWatch
This follows the same shape as Colleen Huber's naturopathic oncology, black salve, and the other cases in our Pediatric Quackery section: a compelling personal story substituting for controlled evidence, a practitioner operating outside or beyond the reach of licensing bodies, and claims that grow bolder the more they're repeated online. What sets this case apart is the explicit, documented claim — made by the promoter himself, not alleged by a critic — that children have already been drawn into an unregulated cancer protocol with no pediatric safety data behind it at all.