Rejecting standard cancer treatment like Elle Macpherson is a big risk

Half of us will develop cancer at some point in our lives, but how many will be able to consult dozens of doctors and then feel confident rejecting mainstream medical advice?

In a recent interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine, Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson revealed that she did exactly that. She told the publication that she was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago, but declined chemotherapy in favour of “an intuitive, heart-led, holistic approach” to treatment.

According to the magazine, Macpherson deliberated over the decision for several weeks after consulting with “32 doctors and experts”. Eventually, in February 2017, she decided to pursue a non-pharmaceutical response led by her primary care doctor, a specialist in “integrative medicine”.

Happily, Macpherson is now in clinical remission – or, as she prefers to put it, “utter wellness”. Without knowing crucial details about the extent of her cancer, the concurrent risk factors and the advice she received, it is futile to attempt to assess the riskiness of her decision to eschew chemotherapy. For example, she did have a lumpectomy – the initial surgery to remove a suspicious lump – which some doctors have said might have been sufficient treatment.

Nevertheless, the story has proved a lightning rod online, provoking both the growing numbers of people who mistrust “conventional medicine” and those who seek to defend it from mounting attacks.

What is behind this mistrust? Some researchers point to the covid-19 pandemic for a rise in “science scepticism” around the world, with its heated debates about the severity of symptoms, merits of lockdowns and safety of vaccinations. The online world of “wellness”, too, is increasingly being used as a cover for anti-science views and even conspiracist thinking.

For members of Black and minority ethnic communities, mistrust of doctors – extending to reluctance to undergo screening for cancer, and even treatment – reflects public health and medical institutions’ decades-long failure to engage with them and ensure equality of care in many countries.

And in the UK specifically, confidence in the National Health Service’s ability to treat cancer has fallen in recent years, with reports of months-long delays to starting essential cancer therapies.

All of this means that, if you are diagnosed with cancer today, your options might seem less clear cut than they did in the past. Add to that the typically brutal experience of chemotherapy, and it isn’t a surprise that Macpherson’s story of “non-pharmaceutical” alternatives has generated such attention.

But it is worth keeping in mind that Macpherson isn’t exactly representative of the vast bulk of people with cancer. With an estimated net worth of US $95 million, she can afford to seek multiple second opinions, then turn down chemotherapy: her wealth acts as a safety net. Her “ingestible wellness” company WelleCo, and her historic romantic links to the disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, whom she dated from 2018 to 2019, further complicate Macpherson’s story.

For most people, there is a real risk to rejecting healthcare. A 2017 study found that those with cancer who chose alternative medicine for their primary treatment had a greater risk of death within five years than those who chose conventional treatment.

A larger study published the following year of nearly 2 million people with cancer in the US, found that use of complementary medicine was associated with refusing conventional cancer treatment, and resulted in double the risk of death within five years.

Certainly, oncologists are increasingly opting to use less chemotherapy, or to bypass it entirely – reflecting new treatments, research and awareness that targeted, tailored responses are the most effective.

But at least for now, the advice from organisations like Cancer Research UK is unequivocal: there is no scientific or medical evidence that alternative therapies can cure cancer. Amid widespread mistrust of medicine, Macpherson’s account – trumpeting a positive outcome, without crucial context – risks influencing people to take a dangerous path.

Everybody might be at risk of developing cancer, but with the colossal resources at her disposal, The Body – as Macpherson was known at the peak of her modelling career – always had a better chance of surviving it than most people, regardless of her choices.

Elle Hunt is a freelance writer and journalist.