Former MAFS contestant Ella Ding apologises for ‘incredibly dangerous’ cancer claim
A former MAFS contestant has apologised for suggesting positive thinking could help cure cancer – remarks lashed as “incredibly dangerous”.
A former Married At First Sight contestant has apologised for suggesting positive thinking could help cure cancer during an episode of her podcast – remarks broadly deemed by listeners as “incredibly dangerous”.
In a lengthy statement on Instagram on Friday night, Ella Ding, who co-hosts Sit With Us with fellow MAFS alum Domenica Calarco, said she should have been “more careful” with her comments, and was not trying to issue formal medical advice.
“Just touching base regarding our latest podcast on Sit With Us, where we talked about POSITIVITY and GRATITUDE,” Ding wrote on her Instagram Story.
“In this podcast, I made mention of a personal family friend and her experience with cancer. This was not meant as advice, it was me relaying a story I personally witnessed and saw the effects of.”
In the episode, Ding also cited Rewired Your Brain, a book by chiropractor Dr Joe Dispenza, in which she said he wrote about curing cancer patients without chemotherapy.
“I want to clarify that although I am personally excited by Dr Joe’s findings and treatment methods he described in the book, I was not intending to provide any medical or treatment advice nor am I qualified to do so,” Ding continued.
“In response to some of the comments following on from the podcast, I acknowledge and take full accountability that I should have made this clearer. I apologise for this. I understand that I should have reminded listeners to always seek professional medical advice in relation to medical conditions, or before making any medical decisions.
“I will ensure that I am more careful in the future when sharing information and stories in relation to these sorts of topics.”
During her chat with Calarco, which aired earlier this month, Ding claimed that “your mind can kill you”.
“It can make you sick. If you’re sick in whatever way it may be, whether it’s with illness, if you have cancer, or if you have depression, you can literally make yourself sicker by focusing on how sick you are,” the 29-year-old said. “You can end up terminally ill.”
To which Calarco responded: “We can program our brains to do pretty much anything.”
While, according to the Cancer Council, some scientific studies suggest that mind-body techniques can help reduce the anxiety of cancer and its treatment, there is no evidence they can actually cure the disease.
Speaking about Dr Dispenza, Ding said he had “hundreds of case studies of people who were sick with cancer, and he literally trained them to just imagine not being sick”.
“Imagine the cancer is leaving your body. Imagine the cells are going away. He’s literally cured patients without chemotherapy.”
The episode was inundated with concerned reviews from listeners on Apple Podcasts.
“Incredibly dangerous to be talking about terminal cancer being beaten by mindfulness and cleanses,” one wrote.
“No cases sited (sic), nothing to back up these claims. You have a huge platform and you are potentially influencing people when they’re making medical decisions. This absolutely should not have been published.”
Another wrote: “What a privileged position you must be in, to have never experienced or lost a loved one to cancer. I can only imagine this is the case since you decided to publish harmful misinformation about healing cancer through mindset. Stick to what you know … which is???”
“I really like listening to Ella and Dom, but they need to be aware of giving medical advice and making health claims which could potentially be dangerous, especially when people may be influenced by their opinions in making choices of their medical care,” said a third.
“Parts of today’s episode were extremely concerning regarding health information.”
“Episodes are getting difficult to listen to, but the latest was just the worst,” wrote another. Interesting to hear that my terminally ill father may have actually lived if he actually just ‘thought positively’ – this is quite offensive and just totally wrong. Not sure how this podcast was even released. Big public apology needed. Cancelled.”
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