CANCER patients seeking health advice online are being bombarded with "miracle cures" ranging from salt water and sound videos to dangerous scrubs that dissolve the skin.
The range of bizarre remedies being touted on social media will form the basis of a presentation in Edinburgh today by Brian Eggo, president of the Glasgow Sceptics, who was spurred to investigate following his wife Laura's diagnosis with breast cancer during the pandemic.
Mr Eggo, an IT consultant from East Kilbride, said he was not personally surprised by the misinformation being shared after spending years challenging pseudoscience through his role with the Glasgow Sceptics.
READ MORE: A history of 'miracle cures' - from carrots and electricity, to heroin
However, he said the first-hand experience of his wife's illness has motivated him to raise awareness of the problem, which he says has become worse since Covid.
He said: "There was already a significant alternative health movement before Covid came along, but discontent breeds the desire to go looking for other things.
"Anybody who's had some gripes about how the government have run things and doubts about modern medicine could easily be swayed.
"We were lucky, my wife's prognosis was good and it's much easier to be rational when that's the case.
"But one thing I'd say is that when people were commenting to recommend a particular product, they were all incredibly confident about how good it was going to be.
"If you're going to your regular doctor and they're saying 'we might be able to help you to survive a little longer' and then you go online and someone says 'we can cure you' - usually at a price - that must be so difficult to resist.
"I think a lot of people are going to think 'what's the harm of rolling the dice?' if my conventional treatment isn't going to help me survive?
"The bigger risk though is the people who may have a good prognosis with conventional treatment who don't take up that treatment because the alternative is more alluring.
"And let's be honest, chemotherapy is brutal. Laura had radiotherapy every day for 25 days.
"She's generally recovering well, but that's not fun. Someone online recommended me a book that about curing cancer with carrots - by juicing and eating carrots.
"I mean, that sounds much less traumatic that chemotherapy."
READ MORE: Cancer in Scotland - waiting times, incidence and mortality
Mr Eggo, 49, joined dozens of Facebook groups in early 2022 and posted the same message in each - explaining that his wife had breast cancer and asking whether group members would advise conventional or alternative therapies.
He recently appeared on BBC science programme, 'Con or Cure?', to discuss his findings which are also the basis for his talk to the Edinburgh Sceptics today.
Alongside more mundane recommendations to cut out sugar or avoid underwired bras, some advised that Laura - a biomedical scientist - should drink her own urine or rub it onto her skin.
Mr Eggo said he also received "lots of recommendations for fenbenzadole" - a de-wormer used in dogs, cats, horses and cows.
He said: "This has been going around since before people started recommending [antiparasitic drug] ivermectin for Covid - they've been recommending fenbenzadole for cancer.
"But I was recommended ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as well - the 'Covid panaceas' were recommended for cancer too.
"There were recommendations for MMS [miracle mineral supplement] which is essentially a bleach solution that will supposedly cure malaria, AIDS, cancer, autism.
"Unfortunately there are some well-meaning but highly deluded parents who are giving their autistic children bleach enemas in order to try to cure their autism - it's horrific.
"There were lots of recommendations for my wife to stop doing things. One quack site said that all cooked food is poison and said she should follow a raw vegan diet.
"I got a huge spectrum of nonsense, an A-Z of nonsense.
"Someone even pointed me to a YouTube sound video - a long beeping noise that plays a specific frequency that they claim can break down cancers in your body.
"Other people were pointing me to weird products like this little plastic circle that they claimed was infused with 'vibrational powers' that can cure you of stuff.
"There's some really crazy stuff out there."
READ MORE: Scotland 'unprepared' for dealing with Covid misinformation
There was also dangerous advice, and financial scams.
One group pushed a "black salve", known by the brand name Cansema, which is designated as a "fake cancer cure" by the US Food and Drug Administration.
The paste, first developed to treat skin lesions in the early 1900s, destroys skin tissue.
"It's primarily recommended for skin cancer, but it's highly caustic - you rub it onto your skin and essentially it melts the skin away," said Mr Eggo, who also found himself repeatedly messaged on Facebook by sellers encouraging him to purchase Asea - essentially distilled water and salt which retails from £54 a bottle and claims to boost the immune system.
"They claim it has some sort of oxidising effect on the body that cures everything," said Mr Eggo.
"This guy even sent me a video of him putting a nebuliser of it on his dog.
"It's not a surprise that if people think it can cure everything in humans, why not sell it for pets as well?"
Facebook says it will "take action" on groups that "repeatedly share health misinformation", but to date none of the groups reported to it by Mr Eggo have been closed down.
A spokesman for the social media platform said: "We remove dangerous health misinformation that's likely to directly contribute to imminent harm.
"We also direct people searching for health information to authoritative sources - including cancer charities."
Mr Eggo added: "It would be nice if the NHS and the oncologists warned you about these online predators, but I don't think they've got the time or inclination to do that.
"Anything we can do to educate the general population and make them aware of the amount of quackery and scams that are out there the better I think."
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