The Wellness Warrior: Denial, Delusion, or Dishonesty?

I’ve been observing a young lady who goes by the title ‘The Wellness Warrior’ and calls herself a ‘Cancer Thriver’ for quite some time now and I’ve come to the point where I can no longer stay silent out of sympathy for her tragic situation. The reason for this; she is lying to herself, lying to her followers, lying to the public about her situation and deliberately hiding the truth of her condition. This can not continue, she is influencing people’s health and cancer treatment choices by misleading them. It is unconscionable. I will probably get slammed for speaking out about this but I don’t care, someone has to.

Jessica Ainscough was diagnosed with Epithelioid Sarcoma in her left arm in 2008 at the age of 22. According to her own account of the story she had an isolated limb perfusion (high dose chemotherapy just to the arm), but was advised by her oncologist after relapse that amputation, although possibly not a cure, was her best option for survival or living a long life. Jess didn’t think this was an ‘attractive option’ and she decided against it and turned to the Internet looking for better options, which is where she found Gerson Therapy. In short, Gerson Therapy is a cancer ‘cure’ scam that costs thousands of dollars and involves a restrictive diet and lifestyle of living on juices and doing up to five coffee enemas per day. You can see Jess demonstrating her method for doing the enemas here.

A friend who works in oncology informs me that since Jess abandoned conventional therapy there has been huge advances in treatment. Newer targeted therapies have just about made isolated limb perfusion obsolete. Sadly for Jess, her adherence to Gerson Therapy and other nonsense for so long has almost certainly cost her any benefit she could have gained from the newer therapies.

Epithelioid Sarcoma is a slow growing cancer. Without treatment, it has a 50-70% 5 year survival rate, and a 42-55% 10 year survival rate. Jess has been living with this cancer for 6 years now, so it is no surprise that she is still alive. In fact, it is almost expected that she would still be alive at this point. Her cancer is simply taking its natural course. There is no miracle here, no story of miraculous survival, and no ‘remission’ as she claims. Just normal disease progression. How do I know the disease is progressing as expected? By monitoring her endless stream of photographs. That is no easy task because she makes every effort to hide her diseased arm, behind other people, inside shirt sleeves, and more recently, inside a bandage, but I have seen enough to form an opinion on what is going on here.

For instance, see this lovely photograph of a young beautiful, vibrant Jess in 2008. Her arm and hand look great. There is no denying she looks well, even healthy and there is no obvious sign of the cancer in her left arm.

Fast forward to 2011, and here we can clearly see lesions on the outside of her left arm and hand, and underside of her left arm as well.

Red obvious lesions, 2011.

And pictured here in 2013 Her arm started to look decidedly worse. No longer just lesions on her hand and arm, the arm is looking quite misshapen with the lesions turning into wounds. I’m told the medical term for this is fungating wounds.

                            

Despite the tragic loss of her mother to breast cancer in 2013 (she took the same ‘treatment’ path as Jess), she continues to promote Gerson Therapy as the reason for her own survival, with the caveat that ‘Like conventional treatment, it doesn’t work for everyone because every person, and every cancer is different.’ I can’t imagine what kind of mental and emotional gymnastics she has had to perform to be comfortable with the fact that her mother died following the very same protocol that Jess claims saved her.

None of this has stopped Jess from turning her circumstances into a career. And by her own admission, a very lucrative career, but that is OK because money is energy after all.

Jess Ainscough: “I drink green juice, eat an organic diet, and I meditate; however the thing that adds the most weight to my wellness regime is the fact that I do something I love every single day. I wake up every morning and get to live the life of my dreams, doing work that never feels like work. And the sweet kicker is that I earn way more now than I could have ever achieved working for somebody else in the corporate world. Everyone deserves this kind of freedom, support and love in their life!!”

Jess Ainscough: “Hey lovely Chloe, I kind of used to have that same belief when I started considering my blog as a career. I started thinking that maybe it wasn’t in keeping with my new identity to want to make money. But I quickly realised that money is just another form of energy, and when we are being of service and living our purpose the money will easily flow to us. Plus, we need money in order to make a significant difference in the world. To me, money means I can look after my health, look after my family, and build my biz and team up so that I can spread my message far and wide. I hope this helps! Xxx”

 Just recently Jess completed a national speaking tour, charging people around $100 per head to come and hear her story of cure through Gerson Therapy, good food and positive thinking. Photos from the event were revealing, especially in what they did not reveal. Her left hand and wrist were hidden by a bandage. When a fellow observer asked about it on her Facebook page this was her response:

Commenter: “Jess, I think a lot of people are concerned about how your arm looks in these images compared to the past few years. Would you consider seeing a doctor about it? What do you think is going on?”

Jess Ainscough: “Hi, my arm is swollen in these pics because of all the flying I’ve been doing. It’s going back down now. I have lymphedema in my arm, and I am working with two doctors and a naturopath to do everything I can to help it. Lymphedema is something people have to deal with their whole lives when they have had lymph nodes removed and the kind of treatment I’ve had on my arm.”

Lymphedema? Possibly. But that is not all that is going on here. Having never engaged with Jess before, I couldn’t remain silent so I raised my concerns:

 “Jess, this concerns me. My mum had lymphedema after treatment for breast cancer that included a mastectomy and  removal of lymph nodes (no chemo). She had to wear a full length  compression stocking, not a little bandage like you have. It is my  understanding that lymphedema doesn’t leave a limb lumpy with red  lesions, but affects the entire limb equally. And it doesn’t cause lesions  like you have. Jess I’m really worried, please see an oncologist, this  looks like disease progression to me.”

Jess’ response? She deleted my comment. So I tried again:

 “Jess Ainscough, why was my comment expressing concern about your arm deleted? It was polite, and expressed genuine concern about the condition of your arm, and you. You have 55,000 + fans here, many who admire what you are doing and some who are following your lead in one way or another. It is disingenuous to delete something honest like what I wrote. I lost my mum in exactly the same way you did – to cancer, except she chose conventional therapy which gave us an extra 20years. Your arm looks diseased, with lesions on it, not like a case of lymphedema. Please don’t lie to us about it, the amount of influence you have demands honesty.”

Her response this time around? Hide the comment and reply. You can see the response for yourself, and my follow up comment as well but the crux of what Jess has to say is:

” I’m not being dishonest. I don’t claim to have cured myself of cancer. I’ve not once said this… I’m working with a team of medical professionals.”

Jess Ainscough: “Hi Rosalie, I’m not being dishonest. I don’t claim to have cured myself of cancer. I’ve not once said this. I live with cancer and I manage it to the best of my ability. Many people believe that I refused medical treatment, but this isn’t the case. There was nothing my doctors could offer me in the way of a cure, so I choose to manage my condition. Thank you for your concern, but I’m not complacent when it comes to my health and I’m working with a team of medical professionals. Xx”

My reply, which went unanswered:

“Jess Ainscough, you may never had said the word cure in public but everything you say and do leads people to think you have cured yourself. Only a couple of weeks ago you claimed to be in remission in the Sydney Morning Herald and based on your photos, looking at your arm, that is clearly not true. You can play semantics all you like, but you and I both know that you have been hiding your arm and the progression of the cancer in it for quite some time now, and that is dishonest. Did you talk about the disease progression on your tour? Have you ever? I have only ever seen you say that the lesions on your arm are the ‘cancer coming out’. Something no one else will probably say to you too is that your type of cancer is a slowly progressing cancer. Your disease would be in the exactly same state it is in now without all the torture and expense of Gerson Therapy. Please be honest with your followers. People are choosing Gerson Therapy to treat their cancers because of you. People who might otherwise be saved by conventional therapy. Sure, it is their decision, but you are influencing their decisions. And that requires you to be upfront about your own condition and you are not. I know this thread is hidden and no one else can see it, but I hope you will give some consideration to what I have said.”

So Jess says she does not claim to have cured herself. She sure likes to give that impression though. Here in an online interview Jess allows the claim that she cured herself of cancer, naturally to stand.

                  

“You cured yourself of cancer, naturally. It’s a “stop the press” kind of moment, yet, because we find it so amazing, what does it say about our relationship with our bodies?
[Jess] We definitely don’t trust ourselves enough, or give our bodies the credit they deserve when it comes to healing. We are designed to self heal – as long as we provide the right environment to do so.”

And here we have a perfect example of the impression jess gives. Without actually saying ‘cured’ of course. Cancer free / cured. Tomato / tomato.

I was also sent a private message by one of her handlers to say that she is consulting Doctors about her arm and it is a private matter. I’m sorry Jess, but everything you do and say publicly implies that you have cured yourself. Your wide eyed, adoring followers think you have cured yourself. I despair about how many people have chosen Gerson Therapy to ‘treat’ their (possibly otherwise treatable) cancer due to your wonderful, positive story.

The elephant in the room here? Your left arm. If you are being so honest about your condition, why all the effort to hide the arm? Why haven’t your followers and fans been told about the problems with your arm? Why did you lie and say its just lymphedema from flying? When are you going to talk publicly about the state of your arm?

You are being dishonest, by hiding the whole story.

You are lying by omission.

You are misleading people, for profit and adulation.

 Does her focus on making money from her new life eliminate any sense of decency she might have once had? I know what I think, but one thing is for sure – she has zero tolerance for any honest public dialogue about her condition, and doesn’t want her wide eyed believers to be exposed to it either.

Over to you Jess, your move. Will you continue to mislead the very people who have contributed to your success? Or will honesty and human decency win out and see you speaking the real truth about your condition?

And media. When is someone going to call her out and report on this situation for what it is instead of fawning over the beautiful young girl who drinks green smoothies? It is time someone in the media took a close look at this situation and exposed the cold hard facts.

Edited to add: Jess has responded by writing a blog, which I will write a reply to over the next few days as time allows. Here is her response.

 

If you liked this post, you might like to see how Jess’ tribe responded when she passed away.