THE GREAT CANCER CON:

Many people diagnosed with cancer will do anything to beat the disease. And as Genevieve Gannon discovers, unscrupulous “healers” are peddling a toxic black “miracle cure” to cash in on their fear.

self-proclaimed healers peddling a toxic ‘miracle cure’

After the planes hit the twin towers in September 2011, a Melbourne nurse named Helen Lawson signed up for emergency response training that would equip her to work in a specialist medical team if there was a terror attack in Australia. It was a very “Helen” thing to do, her partner’s sister Deb Davies says. The devoted health worker was an indefatigable woman, motivated by a strong sense of compassion.

“Nothing Helen did was by halves,” Deb says. “She was an absolute machine. She was only 5’10” but she was an amazon.”

A loving partner and a senior nurse, Helen lived a healthy life that revolved around cycling and work, which is why it was so shocking to everyone who loved her when, faced with a cancer diagnosis, she decided to bypass evidence-based medicine in favour of an alternative treatment being spruiked by a “spiritual healer”. In 2017, a man named Dennis Wayne Jensen, who ran a business out of his home in Warrandyte, Victoria, convinced Helen that he had cured his own brain tumours, and he would cure her, too. He told her to reject conventional treatment and put her faith in him. Helen did, and she suffered excruciating consequences.

In April last year, Helen Lawson,

50, died of ovarian cancer. She’d never had surgery or conventional therapy, despite her family’s pleas, and her last months were marked by intense pain. Her body was mutilated by the treatment the self-proclaimed healer had applied to her abdomen – a corrosive substance commonly known as black salve. The treatment is controversial and widely discredited, but a search online will turn up hundreds of testimonials praising its healing

properties. Devotees claim it’s a natural and safe skin cancer treatment that’s being kept hidden from patients by big pharma and the “sickness industry”. One ad says: “Only suppression and greed have prevented its enormous benefits from being made available to the mainstream.” The medical community and the Therapeutic Goods Administration reject this, warning that there have been no controlled clinical trials of the salve and its use has been linked to death and disfigurement.

“The cancer just kept growing until it burst inside her and she died a horrendous death in ICU,” Deb says, crying as she recounts the story less than a year after burying Helen, the beloved partner of her sister, Belinda Davies.

“The black salve he put on her ate through her,” Deb says. “She would be on all fours at night just screaming in agony and crying with no sleep, and Belinda getting no sleep. Every time they’d go to him, he’d say: ‘I’m so proud of you, we’ve got this.’

“It infuriates me ... yes, she was willing, but she was desperate and she believed this creep who had no stats to back him up.”

In February last year, as Helen’s health was deteriorating, Deb reported Jensen to the authorities. By August, Victoria’s Health Complaints Commissioner Karen Cusack had issued a prohibition order, permanently banning him from “treating” anyone or claiming he could cure cancer. Helen had died, but there was a risk other people were being exposed to Jensen’s nefarious practices. Shortly after the order was made, another complainant came forward. They had also been “treated” for cancer by Jensen but in the second case the “remedy” was laetrile, another so-called miracle cure. It too is “potentially very dangerous,” Dr Cusack says. “Laetrile contains cyanide.”

It is illegal to sell black salve in Australia, but tubs of the stuff can be ordered easily and cheaply online. The charcoal-coloured paste burns

“The black salve he put on her ate through her. She would be on all fours at night ... screaming in agony.”