The 'Hole' in the Pantry Story: Should Penguin have Validated Belle Gibson's Cancer Claims?

Would it ever be responsible to legitimise the story that someone
“healed themselves” of cancer through diet? Jan Hallbæck

Australia is no stranger to a literary hoax or deception, from the “Ern Malley” affair to the falsified backgrounds of Helen Darville and Norma Khouri.

Social media entrepreneur Belle Gibson, developer of The Whole Pantry “health, wellness and lifestyle” app, is now the first to be accused of fabricating a miraculous recovery from metastasised cancer.

There are well publicised allegations that Gibson invented the story of her successful battle against malignant brain cancer using alternative therapies. No doubt Gibson’s personal story was a major hook in the publicity for her brand and helped to drive more than 300,000 sales of the app alone.

The questions raised both by those who have known Gibson and medical experts are beginning to taint the legitimacy of Gibson’s lucrative app and the cookbook she published in October last year.
Penguin, publishers of The Whole Pantry, have stated they did not check the validity of Gibson’s cancer account as they did not see that it was “necessary” given that the book is “a collection of recipes”.

The book does, however, contain a 3,000-word preface that is devoted to answering questions about Gibson’s cancer diagnosis and how she came to the decision to “heal herself” instead of continuing with the prescribed chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

In answer to the latter question, she contrasts her experience of vomiting after medical treatment with the approach she devised through reading articles on the internet and speaking to people. Her solution involved “nutrition, patience, determination and love – as well as salt, vitamin and Ayurvedic treatments, craniosacral therapy, oxygen therapy, colonics”.

Recipe books are proving to be far less benign subject matter than publishers might have imagined.
Also in the past week, the publication of celebrity chef Pete Evans’s paleo-inspired cookbook for infants, Bubba Yum Yum, has been delayed. The book includes recipes for bone broths that appear to be recommended as substitutes for breast milk or formula, and which doctors have warned might pose a risk to babies under six months old.

What is the responsibility of a major publishing house, then, to check the credentials and claims of its authors’ biographies? Or even the validity of particular health claims, such as alternative therapies for cancer or fad diets?

After all, the standing of a publisher can confer authority on a published work. We know there is a continuum between self-publishing houses such as Trafford, who published the much-mocked anti-vaccine polemic Melanie’s Marvellous Measles, and respected academic presses that require books to pass expert review.

Both Apple and Penguin would have perceived the benefits of an association with an “inspirational” social media star who claimed to donate a significant amount of her company’s earnings to charity.
It is troubling that either reputable company would wish to promote someone whose profile and theories rested on entirely unproven claims about the power of food, mindset, vitamins, oxygen and colonic irrigation to cure malignant brain tumours that usually have a poor prognosis.

People are now alarmed by Gibson’s recovery story because it cannot be true if the accusation that she was never diagnosed with cancer is factual.

Yet would it have ever been responsible to publicise and legitimise the story that someone “healed themselves” of cancer through diet? While a good diet certainly does not harm a cancer patient and the role of diet in the development of particular cancers, such as bowel cancer, is established, diet-based “cures” have not been scientifically validated.

Encouraging cancer sufferers to have faith in unproven cures is ethically problematic, purveying false hope and potentially drawing sufferers away from treatment that could be efficacious.

Moreover, the suggestion that a young woman with no medical or scientific education or training was able to devise a cure for her brain cancer through some hours spent googling the topic (and her discovery of the “detoxification properties of lemons”) is preposterous.

Suppressing ideas that are not accepted by contemporary thinking would thwart new knowledge. But, as Patrick Stokes points out in his widely-read article No, you’re not entitled to your opinion, the ability to voice an opinion that is difficult to argue for is different to having views “treated as serious candidates for the truth”.

If the foundation of a book is so far outside of accepted knowledge and little evidence can be mustered in support of it then publishers might not wish to affect their reputation through publication. For instance, Keith Windschuttle’s controversial three-volume The Fabrication of Aboriginal History is self-published.

Whether Belle Gibson suffered from cancer or not, the core dilemma with the publication of The Whole Pantry is that the influence of the author rests upon unverifiable claims about curing cancer with alternative therapies.


This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Diva Controversy: Binning the Playboy Bunny for Girls

What is wrong with a store selling Playboy merchandise? I’ve seen Playboy car seat covers in auto stores and lighters and keyrings in novelty stores for years. The world’s biggest adult entertainment/porn brand has well and truly emerged from magazine racks and sex shop DVD displays. Diva, a chain of Australian budget jewellery stores, took the prevalence of Playboy accessories to what they thought was its logical conclusion by stocking a range of Playboy jewellery, including the iconic “bunny”, a plastic bow-tie necklace, and pendants proclaiming the wearer to be “Miss February”.

What Diva failed to consider was their responsibility to their customer base, which includes a significant proportion of pre-teen and young teen girls. If we’re in any doubt that the chain markets its accessories to girls, consider the following points. The chain’s logo is a pink heart. They stock Twilight jewellery (including an “I Heart Vampires” rubber bracelet). They also sell replicas of celebrity engagement rings, such as the “Katy Perry” for $7.50. This is an affordable store, selling accessories that are appealing to, and within the budgetary reach, of girls aged from 9-13. The following photograph shows the Playboy range shelved immediately next to the “Young Divas” range of plastic colourful accessories for girls.

The range was heavily promoted by the store, including large “Diva for Playboy” banners displayed in store. A campaign led by Collective Shout mobilised hundreds of Facebook users to complain on the store’s official Facebook page. Sadly, many older girls expressed their upset at their discussion of accessories being interrupted by concerned parents, to the point where a number proclaimed their love for the Playboy merchandise and others abused concerned women as sexless, ugly hags. Diva was oddly silent as the war played out in social media, but were busy behind the scenes deleting comments with which they did not agree, especially those who posted a clever ad parody featuring a girl wearing rabbit ears with the caption “When I grow up I want to be a porn star”.

A petition with over 6,000 signatures calling on Diva to remove the Playboy line from its stores was variously rejected when presented in person to several outlets. Diva really did not want to publicly engage with parents who were labelling their store as an aid to paedophiles and facilitator of the sexualisation of children in the name of greed. Instead, it seems that the chain has silently conceded that despite their claims that Playboy was a ‘fashion’ brand with no connection to porn, that the thousands of parents and concerned adults pounding their Facebook page with comments could not be entirely ignored.

Remaining stock has been removed from display, and according to reports on the Collective Shout Facebook page, boxed up for return to head office. The Diva website has removed all but one item from the Playboy range: the diamante bunny head ring that is “a must for all Playmates”. If the range has been such a good seller, as has been variously claimed, then one would expect the stores to be ordering in more products and new stock, rather than returning them to headquarters. Clearly public pressure has made it untenable for the store to continue to sell the Playboy range.

The Diva controversy is an intriguing example of contemporary corporate attitudes to public opinion in which businesses invite comments, feedback and interactivity, but only wish to preserve a culture of compliments and remove any trace of criticism. It also shows the utter failure of such businesses to practice corporate responsibility when their livelihood depends on the spending of children. Perhaps McDonald’s could make a few extra bucks if they installed a bar adjoining the playground at each restaurant? Heaven knows most parents being nagged into eating there could do with a drink. But perhaps, despite their unhealthy options that are marketed to children, McDonald’s has to draw some kind of line because of their major appeal to
children and young adults.

In addition to these things, Diva’s attempts to justify Playboy jewellery as appropriate for marketing to a primary audience of girls under 16 is a further demonstration of the creep of pornified expectations of women to a younger and younger audience. Whether or not we believe these expectations are harmful to women, it is harder to make the case that a 12-year-old should have the freedom to publicly declare herself a “Playmate”. There was a report of one girl of this age purchasing a bunny necklace because she simply liked the look of the rabbit. While this girl was clearly not ready to know about the Playboy empire and what it means for women, the adult world around her would take very different meanings from her display of this symbol. (Thankfully, she never got the chance to find out what the reaction might have been when her parents saw what she had bought at the mall that day.)

The ideal Playmate focuses on making her appearance pleasing to men. She is readily sexually available and happy to not only put herself on display, but to meet any request that a male might have, including to share a man with a bevy of other attractive women. After all, this is the fantasy of the Playboy Mansion, in which the now elderly Hugh Hefner maintains an entourage of young women ready to meet his sexual needs (even if they must be in decline these days). The very thought that girls who are still forming their identities would feel these pressures is disturbing and shameful when peddled by retailers who rely on girls for their business.

That Diva could not even make a simple public admission that marketing Playboy merchandise alongside Winnie the Pooh jewellery was wrong is a sad sign that businesses are not concerned about the exploitation of girls, but merely their bottom lines. While this is seemingly one battle won, the overwhelming force of sexualised images impacting on girls is a much larger war with no sign of a truce in sight.