Jessica Ainscough: Wellness Warrior (1985-2015)
Photo by Peter Wallis
The beautiful young Australian was diagnosed with epithelioid sarcoma of the left arm when she was aged twenty-two. When an isolated limb perfusion failed to destroy the malignant tissue, Ainscough was told her only remaining option was amputation; a traumatic procedure, but one which significantly increases chances of survival.
Refusing to accept this, Ainscough placed her hopes in quackery and reinvented herself as a wellness guru, becoming a pin-up girl for those who believe there's a global conspiracy by the medical establishment (in cahoots with big business and governments) to cover up the beautiful truth about cancer; i.e. that it can be cured with positive thinking and a bizarre range of practices that are basically forms of faith healing and folk magic despite the pseudo-scientific language they are disguised with.
Despite increasingly obvious evidence that her disease was progressing, Ainscough continued to proselytize for her new religion until the very end of her journey (earning a significant sum of money in the process from books and personal appearances).
It's hard to say how many lives have been touched by her - and by touched, I mean fatally compromised and needlessly lost - but it's worth noting that one of these lives was that of her own mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2011.
Convinced by her daughter's ascetic idealism - and doubtless not wanting to disappoint or embarrass her - Sharyn Ainscough also elected to pursue an unorthodox health regime in order to take responsibility for her illness and find a natural cure. She died two-and-a-half years later; a period of time consistent with expectations for untreated cases of breast cancer.
Refusing to accept this, Ainscough placed her hopes in quackery and reinvented herself as a wellness guru, becoming a pin-up girl for those who believe there's a global conspiracy by the medical establishment (in cahoots with big business and governments) to cover up the beautiful truth about cancer; i.e. that it can be cured with positive thinking and a bizarre range of practices that are basically forms of faith healing and folk magic despite the pseudo-scientific language they are disguised with.
Despite increasingly obvious evidence that her disease was progressing, Ainscough continued to proselytize for her new religion until the very end of her journey (earning a significant sum of money in the process from books and personal appearances).
It's hard to say how many lives have been touched by her - and by touched, I mean fatally compromised and needlessly lost - but it's worth noting that one of these lives was that of her own mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2011.
Convinced by her daughter's ascetic idealism - and doubtless not wanting to disappoint or embarrass her - Sharyn Ainscough also elected to pursue an unorthodox health regime in order to take responsibility for her illness and find a natural cure. She died two-and-a-half years later; a period of time consistent with expectations for untreated cases of breast cancer.
The ugly and unfortunate truth is this: abnormal cell growth is a fact of life and cancer kills millions of people globally each year. And the Gerson therapy - for all its living enzymes and coffee enemas - hasn't cured a single case.
* I'm not trying to be flippant, or making this up; the Gerson therapy that Ainscough decided both to follow and advocate really does involve the daily consumption of thirteen glasses of fresh organic juices and five coffee enemas per day. In addition, one must strictly follow an organic whole food plant-based diet, boosted with additional supplements. These measures are designed to optimize health and purify the body of what believers call toxins (but would have at one time designated as evil spirits).
I have sketched out a brief history of coffee enemas in another post: click here. And for more information, readers might also like to check out the entry on Gerson therapy in The Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert T. Carroll: click here.
