Multi-level advertising and marketing vendor Jessie Lee Ward has died of colon most cancers after making an attempt to treatment it naturally.
Ward was the vice chairman of Pruvit, an organization that sells ketone complement merchandise. Pruvit launched a press release about Ward’s premature dying on Instagram, writing, “Her life was lower brief however the years we’ve recognized her, she lived the standard of life equal to a number of lifetimes.”
Ward had made a string of controversial statements about most cancers remedies since her prognosis earlier this yr, per The Every day Beast.
She shared that she had been identified with stage 4 colon most cancers in March following routine blood work. Her oncologist instructed aggressive chemotherapy to increase her life expectancy; Ward subsequently shared on social media that she doubted her care group’s experience.
“My surgeon and the oncologist are 100 per cent pimps. Not of girls, of chemo. They love that h*e,” she stated. “I’ve by no means in my life seen such a powerful and compelling gross sales pitch. They actually ought to go into gross sales.”
In a TikTok video, she stated, “I’m very anti-all of that. I didn’t even give my canine chemo when she had most cancers. I took a holistic route.”
Ward stated she would strive utilizing a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, “ozone” remedies, “magnetic” remedies, and “red-light remedy” to deal with her sickness.
Media personalities criticised Ward’s resolution to publicise her plan because it wasn’t backed by scientific proof or docs’ suggestions.
“She genuinely appears to consider that chemotherapy doesn’t work and that her unproven various therapies will work and that she’s going to beat this,” Rebecca Watson stated in a YouTube video. “She is stating this all to her big viewers of devoted followers. So not solely is that this seemingly going to kill her, however there’s a superb probability it’s going to kill another person too.”
Based on a overview revealed final yr in JCO Oncology Observe, the web has led to a rise in cancer-related misinformation.
“Understanding how the Web has modified engagement with well being data and facilitated the unfold of misinformation is a vital process and problem for most cancers clinicians,” the overview stated.
Social media, particularly, has turn into a harmful supply of misinformation, the overview discovered.
“Social media customers usually tend to consider that data is right whether it is posted by a reputable supply, and within the case of medical data, it is going to sometimes be somebody with healthcare-related credentials,” the authors of the report wrote. “Nevertheless, there isn’t any on-line verification of credentials for social media accounts, and anybody can have interaction in social media with out offering credentials or by reporting false ones.”
To make issues worse, social media corporations haven’t been incentivized to restrict misinformation, the overview stated.
False claims like those made by Ward earlier than her dying are particularly regarding, per the report, which stated, “Oncology-related well being misinformation on social media is a urgent concern. [Research shows] a big destructive correlation between scientific high quality and viewer engagement amongst prostate most cancers informational movies on Youtube.” Individuals are extra prone to watch movies on this topic that include poor high quality data than movies that include higher-quality data.
The abundance of unchecked data on-line is a large drawback for sufferers, and interventions must be made to regulate the standard of that data, the report stated.
“It’s clear that on-line most cancers data is inconsistent and typically at odds with revealed knowledge and skilled opinions,” the authors wrote. “It’s no marvel that sufferers could turn into confused and not sure the place to show and who to belief.”