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MAFS' Ella hits back after being slammed for sharing 'incredibly dangerous' medical misinformation
Listeners of the Sit With Us podcast have slammed the former reality star.
MAFS' Ella Ding has been slammed after allegedly sharing medical misinformation on her podcast Sit With Us with Domenica Calarco in an episode titled Practising Gratitude.
Listeners of the podcast were shocked when the reality star claimed mindfulness, not medical treatment, may be a cure for cancer.
"Your mind can kill you," Ella claimed. "It can make you sick. If you’re sick in whatever way it may be, whether it’s with illness, if you have cancer, or if you have depression, you can literally make yourself sicker by focussing on how sick you are. You can end up then terminally ill."
She then told listeners to educate themselves and read Dr Joe Dispenza's books on the topic, claiming he trained people with cancer to use mindfulness to cure themselves.
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"He has hundreds of case studies of people who were sick with cancer and he literally trained them to just imagine not being sick, imagine the cancer is leaving your body, imagine the cells are going away, imagine this, imagine that," she said. "He's literally cured patients without chemotherapy."
She then claimed a friend's mum went to Mexico and "did this four-month cleanse and it actually did get rid of her breast cancer, with no chemo and the doctor said you need chemo and she didn't want it".
"It comes down to changing the way you think," she said. "Implementing positive thoughts, changing negatives to positives – which is like a science term, I guess."
However, Dr Dispenza is not a medical doctor and is actually a Doctor of Chiropractic, with a Bachelor of Science.
Dr Dispenza's website provides a vague description of his qualifications, saying, "Dr Joe holds a Bachelor of Science degree and is a Doctor of Chiropractic. His post graduate training includes the fields of neuroscience and neuroplasticity, quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG) measurements, epigenetics, mind-body medicine, and brain/heart coherence."
The chiropractor may not claim to be a medical doctor, but his website features numerous claims he helped people cure their illnesses with mindfulness.
Sit With Us listeners were left enraged, with one person in the medical field emailing Yahoo Lifestyle, saying: "I work in the medical field, and I cannot stress enough how incredibly dangerous this is.
"They have a HUGE platform with their podcast, and to talk about how cancer can be beaten without intervention or Western treatment, and potentially influence their followers in their medical decisions, is incredibly irresponsible."
"Ella your comments are downright insensitive and ignorant," one Instagram user wrote on Ella's page. "How can you in good faith be spruiking anything when you tell terminally ill [people] they need to '[rewire] their brain'."
"Just heard a segment of your recent podcast where you discussed clinical medicine without any formal knowledge in this area," another said. "This is incredibly harmful, not just on a theoretical basis, but on a personal level to all people effected by chronic and terminal illness. You have completely invalidated them with your misinformation. Disgusting."
Negative reviews have started pouring in on Apple Podcasts, with one listener writing: "I really like listening to Ella and Dom, but they need to be aware of giving medical advice and making health claims which could potentially be dangerous, especially when people may be influenced by their opinions in making choices in their medical care. Parts of [the] episode were extremely concerning regarding health information."
"What a privileged position you must be in, to have never experienced or lost a loved one to cancer," a third said. "I can only imagine this is the case since you decided to publish harmful misinformation about healing cancer through mindset. Stick to what you know... which is?"
"Interesting to hear that my terminally ill father may have actually lived if he actually just 'thought positively' – this is quite offensive and just totally wrong," someone else said. "Not sure how this podcast was even released. Big public apology needed. Cancelled!"
Others said the episode "absolutely should not have been published".
Ella speaks out: 'Not saying you can cure cancer'
After being called out for "spreading misinformation" about curing cancer with mindfulness in the Sit With Us Facebook group, Ella responded to a user asking if she would speak about the controversy.
The former reality star responded: "I didn't say you can, but that people have and there's many stories online and in research out there. I shared an experience that one of my best friend's mum went through and how she healed herself through natural medicines, I'm thinking of getting her on the pod to share her story. As our platform is a place we share experiences, never saying to do what we say."
"Definitely not saying you can cure cancer, referencing Dr Joe Dispenza, who is a doctor and neuroscientist who helps heal people through the power of their mind.
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"Of course I will say on the podcast like all our experiences, we share not to do or follow but to take things with a grain of salt or however you would like to."
MAFS' Lyndall slams Ella's comments: 'Ignore it'
MAFS star Lyndall Grace, who appeared on the show this year, has been open about living with Cystic Fibrosis and took to Instagram to slam Ella's claims.
"Obviously, being on the Internet is hard sometimes and you see things that make you really, really angry," she said on Instagram. "I just wanted to quickly say, if anything that you ever consume on the Internet, or otherwise in your life, tells you that your illness, that your disease, that your condition, that your disability, that your problems are because you don't have the right mindset – please ignore them."
She continued, "Listen to your doctors, it is not your fault, it is not your choice and it will not change. Having anything like that, will never be because you weren't positive enough, it will never be because you didn't meditate enough, or that you didn't exercise enough, or that you didn't do any of those things. Chronic illnesses and disabilities are so much more than that. Ignore it."
Lyndall also added that mindfulness techniques are "tools to help you mitigate your anxieties and your feelings around your conditions" and "are not cures".
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