Belle Gibson fined $410,000 for building business off bogus cancer claims
Health blogging fraudster Belle Gibson has been fined $410,000 for falsely claiming her cancer was cured through alternative remedies.
Belle Gibson built a profile – and business – off the back of her claims
Gibson built a huge social media following and a wrote book off the back of the claims that therapies and nutrition cured her illness.
It was later revealed she never even had cancer.
Consumer affairs Victoria launched an investigation into Gibson’s claims, accusing her of making it up to promote her app and book, The Whole Pantry.
In June 2016 the consumer watchdog brought a civil case against Gibson and her company Inkerman Road Nominees, which has since shut down.
She also made false claims about donating profits to charities.
Gibson, who was not in court, was found guilty of five contraventions of Australian consumer law.
Legal experts told the Mumbrella Health and Wellness Marketing Summit earlier this month that brands and influencers should be aware of the legalities of social media posts.
Stephen Von Muenster, principal at DVM Law said that if a post is misleading, it is illegal.
“Just remember if your message is so successful and it gets out there and everyone is using the hashtag and everyone is seeing that and it’s being re-grammed or it’s being amplified in different ways, but at its core its misleading, it is wrong, it’s illegal,” he said.
“The more people that are mislead, the more the liability may be for the brand. At its core let’s get that messaging right and make sure we comply with the laws.”
There’s plenty of Instagram influencers in Australia peddling equally dubious health-scare type stories to promote their books, exercise plans, eating guides and generally raise their profile to make a buck. It’s disgraceful and no-one seems to call them out, yet it’s widely known!
Still feel Penguin Books got off lightly as well.
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And why isn’t she doing jail time? Maybe it’s because of her cancer – inside she wouldn’t get the treatment she needed
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I totally agree with you Travesty. I’ve seen a YouTuber who isn’t a qualified nutritionist or anything health related telling her followers that they can start detoxing from 8 to 80. She was also peddling eBooks for a few dollars spruiking all the meal plans and recipes all ripped from Google. It’s reckless and the sad part is people eat it up.
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She was a dud for lying about her charity donations yes, but apart from that she was just being enterprising. Plenty of others are peddling laughable treatments and there’s been no blow back.
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Lies like that are common place. It’s not even a lie if it’s an internal study as they can set their own controls.
Plenty of others have claimed to have cured cancer with magnets, crystals, prayers, carrot juice…
We have a system for registering doctors and other health professionals, which is why when people are sick / have cancer then 99% of the time they go to a registered practitioner. The other 1% are always going to find trouble given they have voluntarily walked off the safe, well trodden path.
If Belle was falsely claiming to be M.D. then that’s where she would have crossed the line. Outside of that, caveat emptor.
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What Travesty said.
It’s rife among bloggers.
Anti-vaxxers should be looked into as well.
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Huh? She hasn’t got cancer. Never has had.
Where have you been?
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Oh Jac.
Sarcasm.
Learn it, live it, love it.
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Just because a lot of people do a thing, it doesn’t make that thing okay.
It’s not enterprising – it’s lying.
Those are different things.
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