Journalism is a job that requires responsibility. Especially when you write about health, and even more so when you talk about cancer. Because a suggestive title is no longer a sin if it can push readers to distrust scientific medicine, but it turns into a dangerous message. Let’s take the case of Elle Macpherson: the Australian model recently revealed in an interview published by the magazine The Australian Woman’s Weekly of having received a diagnosis of breast cancer seven years ago and of having chosen to refuse chemotherapy, in favor of complementary therapies and holistic medicine. A decision that is certainly legitimate – in the final analysis, it is her life and she has the right to do with it what she wants – but which cannot be presented as a choice that is just any, rational and without consequences.

Elle Macpherson Refuses Chemotherapy After Cancer

Of course, that’s exactly what several Italian newspapers decided to do instead. Like Il Messaggero, which chose to headline “Elle Macpherson and breast cancer: «I refused chemotherapy recommended by 32 doctors. I treated myself with holistic medicine»”, above a photo of the beautiful and smiling model, who gives the impression of having made the right decision, and that history has proven her right.

With the utmost politeness, it is better to reiterate rather than not: ignoring the opinion of 32 doctors (if that is really what happened) can only be a foolish and dangerous choice, and that the use of naturopathy, holistic dentists, osteopathy, chiropractic and psychological therapy (the team of specialists to whom he claims to have entrusted his health after refusing treatment) in the case of cancer is, at best, completely useless. At least if we are talking about defeating the neoplasm.

Elle Macpherson was just lucky

How is it possible, then, that Elle Macpherson is still here to tell us her story, despite choosing to distrust scientific medicine? It is a question of luck, a variable that always comes into play in medicine. But it is also worth saying that in her case, it may not have taken that much of it. The tumor she says she suffered from is in fact an intraductal carcinoma Her2 positive sensitive to estrogen, a typically benign breast tumor, which is operated only because there is a relatively high risk that it could transform into an invasive form, if left to itself.

If we take the diagnosis given by the Australian model as true, hers was a cancer with an extremely favorable prognosis, which in some cases may not require drug therapy or radiotherapy following surgery (which Macpherson underwent). The mastectomy she says she refused, the radiotherapy, and the hormone therapy (tamoxifen, a drug that inhibits the development of tumor cells sensitive to female hormones), are all options that oncologists can decide to propose after having thoroughly studied the patient, because in the right conditions they have been shown to reduce the risk of the tumor returning years later.

Osteopathy, meditation, naturopathy and holistic medicine, on the other hand, have never shown any effectiveness in countering the development of tumors or the appearance of relapses. If you decide to rely on luck, as she did without fully realizing it against Elle Macpherson, things can still end well (at least in a case of relatively benign tumors like hers). If you choose to rely on medicine, however, the chances increase significantly. And it is important to tell our readers, so that they do not make choices that then, unfortunately, almost always present a very high price.