Cancer is a horrible disease that killed nearly 600,000 Americans in 2016.
But one Australian blogger thinks it’s not that bad — and she’s not afraid of sharing her ridiculous viewpoint with the world.
“Cancer and disease is your body trying to save you,” Olivia Budgen wrote in a now-deleted post on Instagram.
It seems there’s always another Belle Gibson wannabe waiting on Instagram pic.twitter.com/GmH7lViBpa
— Saman Shad (@muminprogress) November 22, 2017
“Allow me to possibly challenge your beliefs about cancer and other diseases. What if these conditions were not actually bad at all? What if they were created by the body to help save you? What if disease is your body’s survival mechanism?” she continued. “Being open-minded and changing your perspective around what disease actually is and why it’s happening, will allow you to take back control of your health and realise that your body is ALWAYS working for you, and never against you.”
Oh really? Ask one of the 50 percent of Americans with chronic diseases if their bodies are always helping them.
She wasn’t done:
“In this modern day we are consumed by the medical industry’s information which leads us to believe that disease happens to us through genetic disposition,” she wrote, adding that diseases like cancer are “natural defense mechanism[s] to prevent a much more serious situation from occurring.”
The self-proclaimed “holistic health coach” is being compared to Belle Gibson, another Aussie health coach who was ordered to pay over $400,000 after she claimed she cured her cancer through nutrition. It was all a lie.
Budgen doesn’t have nearly as big of a reach as Gibson did — but she’s rightfully getting a lot of flak for her claims.
“The recommendations in Ms. Budgen’s social media post bear no relation to any scientific facts about how cancer starts or how it can be treated,” Martin Ledwick, Cancer Research UK’s head information nurse, told Metro UK. “Her stance is extremely insensitive to people who have cancer and to those who have lost someone to cancer, as it implies that a few changes to diet will save them.”
There is one good thing Budgen is teaching us, though: Don’t take any sort of health advice from an Instagram blogger unless they’re an actual doctor or dietitian.
