Wellness Blogger Hit With Huge Fine After Pretending She Cured Cancer With Clean Living

The world is full of wellness bloggers of varying degrees of success, but few achieve the fame and fortune of best-selling author and blogger Belle Gibson. Her success was no surprise. She wrote a book about how she cured terminal brain cancer by giving up gluten and sugar. Of course everyone bought that book! I love gluten and sugar more than my own family, but if I had cancer and you said that might cure it, I’d give them up in a heartbeat. A lot of people felt that way, and they bought Gibson’s cookbook and her app. But Gibson’s story was all a big, fat lie. Now an Australian court fined her $410,000, or $322,000 in US dollars for lying about charitable donations.

Gibson became famous in 2013 when she wrote on her blog that she had a terminal brain tumor. According to Gibson, doctors had told her she had just months to live. Then she claimed a miracle had happened. She gave up sugar and gluten and devoted herself to clean living and “alternative medicine,” and she said her brain tumor completely went away.

She started selling a clean living cookbook and app called The Whole Pantry.

According to ABC News, Gibson refused to let any journalists see her medical records. If her brain cancer really had gone away, that would have been a huge story. But there should have been medical records showing it.

Gibson also said she’d been diagnosed with cancer in her blood, spleen, uterus, kidneys, and liver.

Last March, Gibson’s story started to come under fire. She’d previously said sales from her book and app were going to charity, but those donations did not happen. The publisher of her cookbook admitted that they hadn’t asked for proof of her claims that her diet cured cancer.

At first she said the blood, spleen, uterus, kidney, and liver cancers were “wrongly” diagnosed by a doctor of magnetic medicine. She maintained the brain tumor was real, and accused critics of bullying her. Eventually, she just admitted the whole thing was made up. She never had cancer.

Her lies convinced thousands of people to buy her book and app, and she was charged with five counts of breaching the consumer act. She faced a fine of over a million dollars. In the end, she was fined $410,000, on the grounds that she might actually be able to pay that.

Gibson was convicted of five separate instances of fraud. She told customers that proceeds from her book and app would be going to charity for separate events. The most egregious of those was a claim that she’d donate 100 percent of a week’s app sales to the family of a little boy named Joshua Schwarts, who had an inoperable brain tumor.

“Ms Gibson expressly compared the terrible circumstances of young Joshua to her own, asserting she had the same kind of tumour as he did; a statement which was completely false, ” Justice Mortimer said.

Gibson’s lies were irresponsible and dangerous. She put people with actual cancer in danger by telling them the real cure was in quinoa, not chemotherapy.

She didn’t even show up in court to hear evidence against her or to defend herself. When she was told the verdict, her entire response was reportedly: “Thank you for the update. Confirming receipt of your email. Much appreciated, Belle.”

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(Image: iStockPhoto / ipopba)

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