The recent publication of Elle MacPherson’s memoirs has caused a sensation around the world. The reason is that the former model admits in one chapter to having suffered from breast cancer and having refused the chemotherapy that the doctors had advised him to have. Although the tumor was removed, the treatment prescribed by specialists was changed for a while. healing journey eight months with a “holistic dentist,” a naturopath, an osteopath and a chiropractor.
“If the surgery is successful, The fact that there was no relapse may simply be a coincidence“, explains Patricia Guillem, professor of epidemiology, public health and preventive medicine at the European University of Valencia. Unfortunately, cases of people abandoning chemotherapy to follow a therapy without scientific basis also occur in Spain. In fact, in recent years there have been cases that have ended in the death of the patient.
“The remissions that a person who has chosen pseudoscience can experience are due to fundamentally spontaneous remissions. If a pathology is demonstrated by a diagnostic test, the disease will surely progress to serious symptoms” warns Guillem. Currently, there is no official data on the number of clinics of this type that exist in our country, but there is an estimate. “There could be around 15,000 centers, based on extrapolations,” explains Fernando Cervera, biologist and communicator in the field of health scams.
Chemotherapy
Although not all of these clinics offer therapies without scientific evidence for tumors, Cervera claims that “a large number of them deceive cancer patients every day. It is a massive and widespread problem in all cities in Spain.” This biologist himself infiltrated these clinics with a hidden camera and posted the videos on YouTube. “It is generally said that chemotherapy is a poison or a pharmaceutical matter, They point to doctors and the public health system as part of a network interested in people who die from chemotherapy,” Cervera explains.
In the end, these pseudotherapists present themselves as altruists, “even if they charge you thousands of euros and kill you in the process,” the biologist laments. In recent years, there have been some cases in Spain with disastrous results. In 2018, Cristina Beraza’s story was published in EL ESPAÑOL, A 51-year-old woman from Hondarribia who was diagnosed with anal cancer. After consulting Juan José García Román, a “naturist” from Cordoba, who claimed to have cured a multitude of cancers, Beraza stopped chemotherapy and followed a strict diet prescribed by this pseudotherapist.
Although the Basque Health Service tried to contact her several times, the “naturist” “I told her what she should say to them to get them to leave her alone, how she should respond to these calls.”Beraza’s daughter told this newspaper. When Beraza’s condition worsened, the pseudotherapist stopped responding and assured that the cancer was no longer in the patient’s body. When the patient arrived at the hospital, there was nothing more to be done: the cancer had spread and she died a month and a half later.
The tip of the iceberg
Also in 2018, the case of a woman from Girona under 40 years old who died from triple negative breast cancer and who decided to be treated with homeopathy was known. The patient ended up being hospitalized because the tumor was advancing in such a way that He became “completely putrid” and had a fever. According to the woman, the healer had told her that “if it comes out of the skin, it is good, because it means he is receiving oxygen.” The tumor had already metastasized to the bones by then and he died shortly after.
However, the best-known cases in Spain are those of Mario Rodríguez and Rosa Morillo. The first was a young man diagnosed with leukemia who also decided to abandon chemotherapy on the advice of an “expert in naturopathic and orthomolecular medicine” and He eventually died in 2013 after the cancer had already spread.. Although he took the case to court, José Ramón Llorente, the man who convinced her, was acquitted in 2018. Similarly, Rosa Morillo showed symptoms of breast cancer in 2014 and decided to treat it with homeopathy until her death in 2017, when it had already spread to the skin, marrow and bones.
Other healers like Josep Pàmies or Enric Corbera also boast of being able to cure cancer thanks to the power of their plants and “bioneuroemotion”, respectively. In fact, Corbera went so far as to say that only “assholes” die of cancer. Fernando Cervera says that “unfortunately in Spain, Many people turn to pseudotherapists every year for illnesses such as cancer.” and explains that these exposed cases “are only the tip of the iceberg of a problem that, for some reason, the health administrations that could avoid it do not care about.”
This is why doctors listen with horror to messages like Elle MacPherson’s, which, coming from an influential person, can be very dangerous. “Unfortunately, what influences public opinion today is not scientific studies or all the literature that has been published on a certain type of treatment, but rather The unnecessary information a person transmits on social networks carries much more weight.“, Guillem laments. “Official medicine relies on the scientific method and does not deceive. “There are situations in which we cannot save the patient, but we use methods that have proven themselves.”
