What the Elle?

Katrina Borthwick - 16 September 2024

It has been reported that former supermodel Elle Macpherson refused to follow the medical advice of 32 doctors to have chemotherapy following a breast cancer diagnosis, instead opting for holistic alternative therapies.

“On her decision to reject conventional medicine, she said: “Saying no to standard medical solutions was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But saying no to my own inner sense would have been even harder,”, later adding she thought chemotherapy and surgery were too extreme.”

However, a later comment from a leading breast cancer surgeon says that she had a type of non-invasive pre-cancer (stage 0), which fortunately means it was caught early. The normal treatment for this would be lumpectomy, which she actually did have done, but it wouldn’t require chemotherapy or mastectomy, as it’s isolated and hasn’t spread. The survival rate for stage 0 cancer is pretty much 100%. She refers to it as a ‘remission’, but I am unsure if that is the right word for the removal of precancerous material.

Bear in mind that Ms Macpherson owns a wellness company (WelleCo) that potentially benefits from people using alternative treatments. The fact her lumpectomy occurred 7 years ago makes me wonder if there was some ulterior motive for bringing it up now. As a side note, she has also been previously romantically linked to anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield.

The upshot? Celebrities can influence a large number of people, including in their medical choices, and that can be dangerous if it leads them in a direction that isn’t in their best interests. Celebrities and the media reporting medical outcomes need to be very careful not to misrepresent treatments in a way that may discourage people from following the advice of qualified medical practitioners.