Really interesting article published today by ORAC at the Science Blogs. Particularly how Jess got into "the Business" & the money she made off it---before she unfortunately died. I had read that Jess's mother was making a six figure income off her breast cancer before she also died. No wonder Belle, considering her personality, also jumped on the bandwagon.

"Jess Ainscough proved to be a far more resolute advocate of natural healing, in part because the alternatives she faced were so awful. She was only 22 when doctors told her the lumps appearing in her arm were epithelioid sarcoma, a rare ­condition for which they offered only two ­treatments: amputation of her arm, which might prevent the cancer spreading, or an infusion of chemotherapy into the limb. Ainscough opted for the latter but it failed to stymie the cancer and damaged the mobility of her arm. Refusing amputation, she opted instead for Gerson ­Therapy, a natural healing protocol that involves a strict daily regimen of 13 organic juices and five coffee ­enemas. Within 18 months of starting it in 2010, she was claiming miraculous results.

“After sticking to the strict Gerson Therapy for 18 months I cured myself of cancer,” she claimed in a short biography on her website in 2011. That same year she told her followers: “It’s kind of shocking to think that even though Dr Gerson discovered his cure way back in the 1930s, many people have still never even heard of him — let alone know that his legacy holds the answers to curing cancer.” In other posts she wrote that Gerson Therapy had “saved my life” and helped her “beat” cancer. She was also ­scathing of conventional treatment, describing it as a “scam” and arguing that women should avoid biopsies and mammograms because they spread the disease.

“Once upon a time you had to do a lot of digging to find out the truth about how to really heal cancer,” she wrote in May 2011. “These days, as more and more people are fed up with conventional options, searching for something better and discovering that there is something better, they are doing everything in their power to make sure the word is spread far and wide. I thank Facebook, Twitter and the mass inundation of awesome blogs out there for this.”

Ainscough was only 25 at the time; in later years she retreated from her harsh view of ­doctors and denied she had ever claimed to be cured. But those early posts generated the intense interest which led more than 2.5 million people to her site, and the persuasiveness of her story became evident in April 2011 when her mother Sharyn was diagnosed with breast ­cancer and also rejected medical treatment.

“Jess, I am so sorry to hear about your Mom,” said one of the many followers who sent her ­messages of support upon hearing the news. “I am currently on the Gerson Therapy, almost done 4 months, diagnosed with breast cancer. I am inspired by you, we all are, and just know that you are a grand example as to how our bodies heal …”





[www.theaustralian.com.au]

"But wellness has become a lucrative business thanks to social media, as Jess Ainscough herself candidly admitted. After completing an online course at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition — a much-criticized for-profit academy in New York — she set herself up as a “holistic health coach” in 2011 and learnt the secrets of monetizing her blog from the US business guru Marie Forleo, whose B-School program at the time operated under the slogan “Rich, Happy & Hot”.

“I knew I had the potential to change lives,” Ainscough later quipped. “The head-scratcher, however, was how I was going to make enough money to fund the lucrative, laid-back lifestyle I desired to live. Keeping the fridge stocked with fresh organic produce is pricey; let alone my penchant for nice clothes.” Ainscough mastered the language of feel-good salesmanship, telling her followers that $979 might seem a steep price for her Lifestyle Transformation Guide, but “‘I can’t afford it’ is one of the most dangerous and disempowering things you can ever say”.

As well as selling her own products — e-books, jewelry, online life-coaching — she earned money spruiking the products of others, and enthused on her blog about cosmetics, clothing and other merchandise sent to her for free. Ainscough seems to have been more transparent than most bloggers about her commercial tie-ins and freebies, but the seemingly personal nature of the wellness world is precisely why so many marketing companies use people like her as proxy promoters. By 2013 she had made enough money to repay her father for her medical bills and buy a $585,000 four-bedroom home on the Sunshine Coast with her fiancé, plus a $30,000 SUV. “I earned six figures within a year of completing B-School and have doubled my income every year since,” she boasted in one post, adding that the program had taught her how to “organically attract an amazing tribe of people who trust me”. "

[scienceblogs.com]