Montreal-based vlogger faces ire over alternative cancer remedies

CTV Montreal: Alternative therapy vlogger A Montreal woman is advising cancer patients to forego conventional medicine to try an alternative therapy.

Her name is Brittany Auerbach.

But when she’s dispensing advice to followers on YouTube, Instagram, and her blog, she goes by the name “Montreal Healthy Girl.”

Auerbach’s vlogs – video blogs – claim to give viewers the tools to heal themselves from a litany of ailments, from hair loss, HIV, to cancer.

John Prenovost became familiar with Auerbach in 2012, after his longtime friend Perry Pestano – living in Florida – noticed something. There was a lump on the left side of his neck.

Pestano came back to Montreal to visit his sister and have the lump diagnosed. A biopsy confirmed it was cancer, and according to Prenovost, a Montreal oncologist said the odds of beating the cancer with radiation and chemotherapy were high – almost 80 per cent.

But according to Prenovost, Pestano decided instead to follow the advice of his sister, and her daughter Brittany Auerbach, who suggested Pestano adhere to a strict diet of juices.

Auerbach believes, among other things, that "alkaline imbalance" in the body contributes to cancer, and claims juicing can stop it.

“It’s like giving yourself a blood transfusion,” Auerbach states in one of her videos. “It really is.”

Joe Schwarcz – a McGill University professor of chemistry and head of the university’s Office for Science and Society – said a listener to his weekly radio show alerted him to Auerbach’s website.

“When I looked I was kind of horrified, because here was someone who says she has a cure for basically every disease that exists,” Schwarcz explained. “Whether it was stones in your liver, herpes, HIV, or – most frighteningly – cancer.”

In one of her vlogs, Auerbach says chemotherapy and radiation are “the most volatile, cancer-causing agents known on planet Earth.”

But Schwarcz said Auerbach’s simplistic remedies to serious diseases are misguided at best, and dangerous at worst.

“She’s giving advice that, scientifically, we know is incorrect and it is steering people in the wrong direction,” he said.

Auerbach describes herself as a naturopath who graduated from L’Institut de Formation Naturopathique (IFN).

Jonathan Jarry works with Schwarcz, and examined her credentials.

“She graduated from a place called IFN online – the only institute here in Quebec,” Jarry said. “So you pay $1,200 and get a bunch of docs sent to you by email, read them, and pass some tests, and you’re good to go.”

Auerbach often tells her YouTube followers that her advice constitutes her “personal opinion,” and has a disclaimer advising people her material is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Schwarcz, however, says that shouldn’t get her off the hook.

“Whether or not she’s legally liable is besides the question; she’s morally liable. She’s giving advice which is scientifically incorrect,” he said.

What shocked Jarry most was a blog post in which Auerbach wrote cancer is “good” for you.

“In Brittany’s world view, cancer is just a warning sign,” Jarry said. “It’s a good thing; it just means your body is too acidic, so all you need to do is eat more alkaline foods.”

“That, to me, is just absolutely abhorrent,” he added.

What’s worrying to both men is Auerbach’s outreach around the world.

“She gets a lot of engagement: likes, comments from people appreciative of what she does. So she’s reaching a fairly large segment of the population and she’s giving people a lot of nonsense, a lot of dangerous nonsense,” Jarry said. “She looks like the girl-next-door who has finally figured out life. And that’s very convincing.”

Schwarcz explains that Auerbach, in her videos, sounds compassionate and like she has a grasp on the subject matter. For people who don’t know the basics of science, she may sound “almost logical,” he says.

CTV Montreal reached out to Auerbach on three separate occasions, but she declined the request for an interview, saying she was out of town caring for a sick family member.

She also did not answer any questions regarding her medical opinions.

Despite repeatedly trying to convince his friend that “juicing” as a cancer remedy was fruitless, Prenevost said he simply wouldn’t listen.

“It was extremely frustrating – extremely frustrating,” Prenevost said. “We couldn’t speak to him about it. We had to carefully watch our words with him.”

Prenovost said it was only after the disease had progressed that his friend turned to an oncologist in Florida, eventually undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. But by then, it was too late. His friend died at age 58.

“It got him in the end, and we watched him go down. It was horrible – it was absolutely ghastly,” he said. “If you want to believe in something, that’s your business. But you cannot promote that to the public. You can’t do that!”

Prenovost said that, overall, he has “no words” to express the “absolute” nonsense that Auerbach is promoting through her videos.

“She’s going to hurt people if they buy into that program,” he said. “It’s dangerous. Downright dangerous is what it is.”