A decade on from Belle Gibson, wellness quackery is still big business

In early 2014, popular wellness influencer Jess Ainscough began a national tour. She was promoting a book about her journey of “healing” herself from a rare form of cancer, epithelioid sarcoma.

After rejecting medical advice, the bright-eyed, blonde Queenslander turned to meditation, green juices, abstinence from alcohol and meat, and up to six coffee enemas a day. She told her “wellness warrior tribe” of followers that she was “living proof of the body’s ability to heal itself”.

Belle Gibson arriving at Federal court in April 2019. She is the inspiration behind new Netflix series, Apple Cider Vinegar. Credit: Darrian Traynor

But by early 2015, the 29-year-old was tragically dead.

Ainscough’s cancer was real, and she was as much of a victim as she was a promoter of wellness quackery. Fellow wellness influencer Belle Gibson’s cancer was not real.

However, that didn’t stop Gibson, who purportedly tried to emulate Ainscough’s wellness profile, from saying that she had used natural therapies and nutrition to treat terminal brain cancer.

Brain cancer, according to Gibson, is as easy to treat as organic whole foods, raw desserts, stress reduction, vitamins, oxygen therapy and colonics. Oh, and apple cider vinegar for theoretical liver and digestive health, as well as to treat tapeworms (it really won’t help with those).

Her story, detailed in the new Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar – which features a character loosely based on Ainscough – depicts a lonely, naive fraudster desperately seeking attention.

The timing of the series could not be more perfect.

With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. set to take one of the world’s most powerful health jobs, wellness quackery is alive and kicking.

Wellness and wellbeing themselves are not fake, only many of the claims drawing on the promise these terms hold.

RFK Jr. has his own ideas, but they still fall under the same plastic-free, sage-sticked umbrella of wellness pseudoscience. His claims include that vaccines cause autism; fluoride causes cancer; antidepressants cause mass shootings; and that raw milk and beef fat are key to Making America Healthy Again.

Today, as was the case in the 2010s, the claims of wellness influencers are easy and intoxicating lies to fall for. Reflecting the filtered reality of the platforms they are presented on, their messages contain prettied-up partial truths.

A whole food diet and healthy lifestyle, for instance, can indeed reduce the risk of cancer and, for those diagnosed, improve outcomes. Complementary therapies, including meditation, acupuncture and massage, when used with conventional medicine treatment, can help with symptoms and anxiety.

There is some evidence that drinking raw milk from a young age may protect against allergies, but doing so is far more likely to give you a bacterial infection. Anything, including fluoride, in high enough doses can cause harm. The doses in our drinking water are well below these levels. And while it is true that rates of autism are increasing, suggestions that it resulted from vaccines have been thoroughly debunked. RFK Jr. does not mention that vaccine hesitancy has contributed to rising cases of whooping cough and measles.

RFK Jr.Credit: Getty

As for suggestions of a link between mass shootings and antidepressants, research has found that most school shooters were not previously treated with psychotropic medication.

Funnily enough, the very same wellness influencers who are so distrustful of the science happily regurgitate science if it supports their claims. Cherry-picked and rose-filtered.

Still, when wellness influencers give us easy answers to complex problems, it gives us hope and a sense of control at times when we feel overwhelmed or hopeless. And their claims tap into familiar tropes about good and bad, purity and pollution.

Ainscough believed her cancer was the result of a “toxic diet, toxic mind and toxic environment”. She had been “bad”, polluting her body through binge-drinking and a poor diet, and she believed it gave her cancer. So, by being “good” and pure in her lifestyle, she believed she could cure it.

Then, there is the equally appealing and comforting David and Goliath trope. Little old RFK Jr. with his raw milk and the “no vax, no worries” infant onesie merch he once sold versus Big Food and Big Pharma.

The wellness influencer becomes the underdog hero who stands by their convictions, goes against the mainstream and wins. There is so much appeal in that message, no wonder we fall for it – especially when it is packaged so neatly.

In fact, research suggests that social media posts about cancer contain up to 80 per cent misinformation.

Apple Cider Vinegar is a reminder of the dangers of not applying the same scrutiny to the pretty underdog message as we do the less attractive message of the mainstream.

Gibson’s advice put her followers’ health, and potentially their lives, in danger. And right now, our health is again in danger if we swallow the junk messages being sold as wellness gospel by RFK and his acolytes.

Sunshine, whole foods, meditation and movement are all great. So, can we all cherry-pick those for better health and wellbeing and filter out the toxic advice?

If only it were all as simple as a daily shot of apple cider vinegar and a glass of raw milk.

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