None of this is remarkable and in the normal course of events, her appearances in women’s magazines with a few wacky interviews on FM radio thrown in would be permitted to safely go through to the keeper.
What is noteworthy is that Macpherson has claimed she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy. According to the 60-year-old former supermodel she eschewed subsequent medical treatment proposed by no fewer than 32 doctors, and healed herself with the assistance of a small army of naturopaths and some one who calls him or herself a “holistic dentist.”
“I chose a holistic approach. Sometimes an authentic choice from the heart makes no sense to others … but it doesn’t have to. People thought I was crazy but I knew I had to make a choice that truly resonated with me. To me, that meant addressing emotional as well as physical factors associated with breast cancer. It was time for deep, inner reflection. And that took courage.”
She says she is in remission and has been scanned up frequently, and the cancer is gone.
Normally, this sort of personal information should remain a conversation point between family and friends but Elle Macpherson has something to sell beyond her next book. You guessed it. Dietary supplements on a website called WelleCo. It’s a play on words. Get it?
She is partnered in this exercise by a London nutritionist who holds a doctorate in the area. One wonders what a doctoral thesis in nutrition might involve – The importance of eating a hearty breakfast? Avoid upsizing your KFC Double Down burger?
This nutritionist has revealed her own battle with breast cancer, which she claims she “successfully treated naturally with a better lifestyle and vegan supplements.” While not a partner in WelleCo, another nutritionist with a PhD, a self-proclaimed master raw food chef, has also been extolled by Macpherson. This nutritionist claims to have cured herself of Stage 2 cervical cancer within three weeks by a “detox program.”
Gee, what are the odds?
The multi-billion dollar supplement industry is designed to part fools and their money and take them on a nebulous pathway to wellness. Beyond the placebo effect, there are little or no benefits besides what an oncologist told me was to give the saps who buy this stuff with “expensive piss.” A quick glance at the product range of WellCo and with some back of the envelope arithmetic, I’d put it somewhere around $15 a flush.
Macpherson also praises another doctor – this time an actual medical doctor, Dr Zach Bush. Bush pushes a bizarre series of views. Viruses are Mother Nature’s iOS updates, Covid doesn’t exist, neither does HIV, ebola, Chicken Pox or Polio and if we all just took the time to gnaw on a tomato, we would achieve some mythical state he calls “the opposite of cancer”. Bush also knocks out supplements on his website.
It troubles me that I am giving these people publicity because we should be looking not at vague or dubious stories of heroism against the odds and medical advice but at the people with the gravitas to make hard decisions based on medical advice. .
Two years ago, a close relative of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer. She consulted with a range of oncologists before undergoing a double mastectomy with radiation, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.
It was an awful time for her, her husband and her adult children. But she is made of tough stuff and happily is now in remission. For all that she is aware, as are all cancer sufferers, that the person she was has changed. Surgery, chemo, radio comes at a cost, physical and emotional. An active person, she has had to manage her expectations because the chemo which helped heal her has caused a reduction in bone density.
I became friends with a woman at an infusion centre in western Sydney. We discovered we were neighbours and discussed the logistic difficulties of the long drive home. I was being infused with the immunological drug, Keytruda while she was the subject of the drip, drip, drip of toxins to destroy her cancer at a cellular level, post surgery. She sat there, her head wrapped in a shawl fully accepting the chemo would make her nauseous, unwell and fatigued.
I see her occasionally in the supermarket and we chat. Neither of us pry into the other’s circumstances. I don’t think we have mentioned the word remission in our conversations. Polite inquiries as to one’s health are met with little more than, “No, I’m good.” She looks well and she shares with me the simple joy of knowing we have had our lives extended by medical science.
My cancer was resolved by the rather blunt method of surgical intervention. I did not undergo chemotherapy, not because I opted for expensive elixirs, cocktails of ‘vegan protein powders’ and six weeks in Arizona but because the doctors said it was unnecessary. The cancer returned a few years later and it was back to the operating theatre. I’m scanned regularly and so far, so good.
When first diagnosed, I tried everything to avoid surgery which I knew would be life changing. The Keytruda infusions were my last hope but the carcinomas remained stubbornly attached to my bladder, urethra and prostate, all of which had to go.
So I understand the pull of quackery, the temptation of falling for false hope. Macpherson and her supplement flogging mates are not suggesting they hold a cure for cancer. But a closer examination of these people’s businesses and their weird theories reveal it is vaguely implied, pitched at people who by some biological misfortune, find themselves vulnerable and open to an easy way out that could stall medical intervention and kill them.
Elle Macpherson is on a publicity tour promoting her new book. That means a raft of soft interviews in a grasp for relevance, a dull noise of egomania.