The "Makis Protocol": An Informational Review

What is publicly circulated, what has actually been published, and what remains unknown

Yoon Hang Kim, MD, MPH  |  Board-Certified in Preventive Medicine  |  Integrative & Functional Medicine Physician

Disclosure and position. Dr. Kim does not endorse this protocol and does not present it as an evidence-supported cancer treatment. In clinical practice, he will prescribe components of it on a compassionate-use basis for an established client who, after a full discussion of what is and is not known and of the risks involved, expresses a strong preference to proceed — with appropriate laboratory monitoring and with the client’s oncology team informed. That is a decision made inside an existing physician–client relationship at the client’s initiative. It is not a recommendation, and it is not an offer extended through this article. Where cancer supportive care is concerned, Dr. Kim considers the evidence base substantially stronger for intravenous vitamin C, low dose naltrexone (LDN), and alpha-lipoic acid, which are discussed at www.ifmsynergy.com. He has no financial interest in any of the agents described here and no relationship with any individual or entity that promotes or sells them. This article is strictly informational and is not medical advice.

Purpose of This Article

The regimen circulating online as the "Makis protocol" is a set of repurposed antiparasitic drugs promoted for cancer. Most of what is written about it falls into one of two categories: promotional material that presents it as suppressed truth, or dismissals that do not engage with the underlying literature at all. Neither is useful to someone trying to understand what is actually established.

This article does one thing only: it reports, accurately and with verifiable sources, what has been published and what has not. It takes no position on whether the protocol works, because the evidence that would justify a position in either direction does not currently exist. Reporting that a claim has been made is not the same as supporting it, and nothing in the sections below should be read as support.

Background

Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician trained in nuclear medicine and radiology at McGill University, formerly at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton. Since 2023 he has publicly documented, primarily through Substack and X, the use of high-dose ivermectin combined with benzimidazole antiparasitics in people with cancer, generally alongside metabolic add-ons and dietary changes. A version of this approach was published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine in 2024 with co-authors including Dr. Paul Marik.

Two facts belong in any accurate account. Independent cancer-information organizations report that Dr. Makis does not currently hold an active medical license. And in June 2026, Dr. Marik — a co-author on the original paper — publicly stated that the high-dose version of the protocol is potentially toxic and that he does not recommend it; Dr. Makis published rebuttals. These are matters of public record, stated here without editorial characterization, but they are relevant: the protocol’s own authors do not agree on whether it is safe.

What the Circulated Protocol Involves

Circulated versions of the protocol pair high-dose ivermectin with a benzimidazole antiparasitic, taken daily for months, along with adjuncts that vary by version — methylene blue, berberine, curcumin, vitamin D3, metformin, doxycycline, and ketogenic-leaning dietary changes appear in different iterations. Doses are presented online as tiers matched to cancer type and aggressiveness.

This article deliberately does not reproduce those tier-by-tier dosing tables. Publishing a grade-matched dosing schedule for an unvalidated regimen would function as instructions regardless of what disclaimers surround it, and that is not the purpose here. What is worth reporting is the magnitude of the doses relative to anything with an established human safety record, because that comparison is itself a matter of fact.

How the Circulated Doses Compare to Established Human Dosing

Stated plainly: the FDA-labeled antiparasitic dose of ivermectin is a single dose of roughly 0.2 mg/kg. The circulated protocol involves multiples of that amount taken every day for months. Chronic daily exposure at that level has not been established as safe in humans, and it has not been established as effective against cancer. Both of those are statements about the current state of the published record, not judgments.

The mebendazole picture differs in one respect: oncology research has studied doses above the antiparasitic label. But the best-designed human study to date used 1,000 mg per day, added to conventional chemotherapy — not the higher figures found in circulated materials, and not as a replacement for standard treatment.

A Note on Fenbendazole

Many circulated versions include fenbendazole. It is not discussed further in this article for a specific reason: fenbendazole is a veterinary drug and has never been approved for human use by the FDA or any comparable regulatory body. There is no human pharmacokinetic program, no established human dose, no human safety monitoring framework, and no pharmaceutical-grade human formulation.

The published human record consists largely of harm. Case reports document serious drug-induced liver injury in cancer patients who self-administered it: a 2021 report in a lung cancer patient receiving pembrolizumab; a 2024 report of histologically confirmed severe hepatocellular injury; a 2026 report in a colon cancer patient on immunotherapy in which fenbendazole was identified as the probable cause by formal causality assessment; and a 2026 report of severe liver injury following concurrent veterinary-grade fenbendazole and ivermectin. Liver function recovered in these cases after the drug was stopped. Separately, a 2025 case series reporting apparent remissions with fenbendazole was retracted by its publishing journal in January 2026.

Mebendazole is a human-approved drug in the same chemical class, with decades of human use and actual trial data. That is why this article confines itself to the two human-approved agents.

What Human Evidence Exists

Mebendazole

The strongest human data point is a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 40 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (Hegazy et al., Life Sciences, 2022). All patients received bevacizumab plus FOLFOX4 chemotherapy; half additionally received mebendazole 500 mg twice daily for 12 weeks. The mebendazole group showed improved overall response rate and progression-free survival, with no serious added toxicity reported.

The limits of that study should be stated as clearly as its result. It enrolled 40 patients at a single center. It tested mebendazole as an addition to standard chemotherapy, not as an alternative to it. Confirmatory trials have not been completed. A 40-patient trial is a reason to run a larger trial; it is not a basis for treatment decisions. The remaining mebendazole literature consists of case reports and small early-phase studies in gliomas and other tumors, with mixed results.

Ivermectin

Human oncology evidence for ivermectin remains preliminary. A phase I/II trial at Cedars-Sinai combining ivermectin with the immunotherapy balstilimab in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer was presented at ASCO 2025; it is the first formal clinical trial of ivermectin in cancer. Proponents also circulate a 2026 observational cohort reporting outcomes in patients using ivermectin and mebendazole. Observational cohorts of self-selected patients, many of whom were also receiving conventional treatment, cannot establish that a drug works. That is a limitation of the study design and applies regardless of what the numbers show.

Preclinical work

There is a substantial body of cell-culture and animal research on these compounds — effects on microtubule function, WNT signaling, cancer stem cells, and tumor metabolism. This research is real and is the reason the drugs attracted scientific interest in the first place. It is also where nearly every cancer drug candidate begins, and the large majority of candidates that look promising at this stage fail when tested in humans. Mechanism is a hypothesis. It is not an outcome.

What Is Not Known

• Whether the protocol improves any cancer outcome. No randomized trial of the protocol as a whole, or of high-dose daily ivermectin in cancer, has been completed.
• Whether chronic daily ivermectin at the circulated doses is safe. Single-dose tolerability data do not answer the question of months-long daily exposure, particularly regarding neurologic effects and drug interactions (ivermectin is a P-glycoprotein and CYP3A4 substrate).
• How these agents interact with active cancer treatment. The documented liver-injury cases occurred largely in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors, where drug-induced hepatitis can be mistaken for immune-mediated toxicity and can interrupt effective treatment.
• Whether the single positive mebendazole trial replicates at larger scale, in other tumor types, or outside the context of concurrent chemotherapy.
• What is actually in the products people obtain. Sourcing for these agents is frequently unregulated, and content, purity, and labeling accuracy are not verified.

Summary

There is preclinical research on ivermectin and mebendazole in cancer. There is one small randomized trial suggesting mebendazole may add benefit alongside chemotherapy in metastatic colorectal cancer. There is one formal ivermectin trial reported at ASCO 2025. And there is a widely circulated protocol whose doses substantially exceed anything studied in humans, whose own co-authors publicly disagree about its safety, and which commonly includes a veterinary drug associated with published cases of serious liver injury.

Those are the facts as they currently stand. This article offers no conclusion beyond them. Dr. Kim does not recommend this protocol as an evidence-supported treatment; see the disclosure at the top of this article regarding how it is handled in clinical practice.

One practical observation, offered as harm reduction rather than guidance: the documented injuries in the published literature have overwhelmingly involved self-administration that was not disclosed to the treating oncology team. Anyone taking or considering any repurposed agent should tell their oncologist and hepatologist, so that toxicity can be recognized correctly if it occurs.

Important: This article is informational only and is not medical advice. It describes publicly circulated regimens and published research for the purpose of accurate reporting. It is not a recommendation, endorsement, or instruction to take, obtain, combine, or dose any medication, and Dr. Kim does not endorse this protocol — see the disclosure at the top of this article. The doses described have not been established as safe or effective for cancer. Reading this article does not create a physician–client relationship. Never start, stop, or modify any treatment — conventional or otherwise — except with the direct involvement of your treating physicians.

In health,

Yoon Hang Kim, MD, MPH

References

1. Hegazy SK, El-Azab GA, Zakaria F, Mostafa MF, El-Ghoneimy RA. Mebendazole; from an anti-parasitic drug to a promising candidate for drug repurposing in colorectal cancer. Life Sciences. 2022;299:120536. PMID: 35385794. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35385794/

2. Yamaguchi T, Shimizu J, Oya Y, Horio Y, Hida T. Drug-induced liver injury in a patient with nonsmall cell lung cancer after the self-administration of fenbendazole based on social media information. Case Reports in Oncology. 2021;14(2):886–891. PMID: 34248555. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34248555/

3. Thakurdesai A, Rivera-Matos L, Nagra N, Busch B, Mais DD, Cave MC. Severe drug-induced liver injury due to self-administration of the veterinary anthelmintic medication, fenbendazole. ACG Case Reports Journal. 2024;11(5):e01354. PMID: 38706451. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11068125/

4. Krishnan A, Lucas K, Maas L, Woreta TA. Differentiating fenbendazole-induced liver injury from immunotherapy hepatitis — the importance of structured causality assessment: a case report. World Journal of Clinical Cases. 2026;14(2):116700. PMID: 41608149. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41608149/

5. Drug-induced liver injury following co-ingestion of veterinary fenbendazole and ivermectin for prostate cancer: a case report. Cureus. 2026. PMID: 42299164. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42299164/

6. Stromectol (ivermectin) FDA-approved prescribing information. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/050742s023lbl.pdf

7. Ivermectin and cancer: a closer look at its use and risks. CancerChoices. 2025. https://cancerchoices.org/ivermectin-and-cancer-a-closer-look-at-its-use-and-risks/

8. From farm to pharmacy: controversial antiparasitics in cancer care. Pharmacy Times. 2026. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/from-farm-to-pharmacy-controversial-antiparasitics-in-cancer-care

About Dr. Kim

Dr. Yoon Hang “John” Kim is a board-certified physician with more than 20 years of clinical experience in integrative and preventive medicine. He completed his integrative medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona under Dr. Andrew Weil and holds board certifications in Preventive Medicine and Integrative & Holistic Medicine, along with UCLA medical acupuncture certification. He specializes in low dose naltrexone (LDN), autoimmune conditions, chronic pain, integrative oncology, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, MCAS, and mold toxicity. He is the author of 3 books and more than 20 articles.

Professional: www.yoonhangkim.com  |  Clinical: www.directintegrativecare.com