All language subtitles for False Hope Alternative Cancer Cures 2020 WEB h264 WEBTUBE_track3_eng

This is sort of the documentary
that I would have liked to see

two years ago when we were making
the decision about Sean's treatment.

I needed to see this.

He said he just felt
like he just got lied to.

He trusted the wrong people.

And it's obviously cost him
his life.

As you can see,
this is really working.

This is healing my body.

Chemotherapy, I've already had it.
It done me no good.

Does it make sense
to poison yourself

back to good health?

It doesn't. It's not. It's insane.

Why would you poison yourself
back to good health?

Sean died in January 2019,

three years after turning down
hospital treatment

and deciding he was going
to cure his cancer

without his doctor's help.

I'm Layla Wright,
and I'm a journalist from Liverpool.

I never met Sean, but I'm friends
with his girlfriend Aimee

and followed his journey online as
he tried to heal himself naturally.

A year on from his death,
I'm investigating why he turned down

conventional medicine and the people
he believed were helping him.

I'm meeting Aimee at the cafe where
she had her first date with Sean.

He was, like, a foodie, so he knew
all the best places in Liverpool.

I've known Aimee for years,

but we became good mates back at uni
just after she met him.

Sean was just... I'm going to cry.
That's all right.

He was just so funny. Erm...

Just like the life and soul
of a party, just so confident.

Before we met,
I was just in awe of him,

because he was just so cool.

He'd be playing the gigs and stuff,

and, like, me and my friend Erin
would be, like, cheering them on

and dancing.

INDIE ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

Even when he was little, he'd always
be, like, doing the peace signs

and stuff, and his dress sense
and his hair and his music

and everything,
how eccentric he was.

He didn't care what
people thought of...

You know, he'd walk down
Bell Street with, like,

a fur coat on
and he just didn't care.

He was like, "Well, I like it
and this is what I'm doing."

Maybe that's why he was a musician.

# How was I supposed to know

# That you'd walk out that door... #

Sean and his band were well-known
around Liverpool,

but just a few months before they
recorded their first album,

Sean had just got
over the worst time of his life.

You just don't imagine...

Mm-hm.

..that your child's going
to have cancer.

It just doesn't enter
your head, does it?

Came back he had Hodgkin's lymphoma.

And he had to start six months
of chemotherapy,

and it was gruesome on him.

He got through that and we thought,

"This is it, he's going to get
on with his life."

But Sean was in remission
for less than two years.

He started getting poorly again
and then they called us in and said

the cancer was back.

He had to undergo chemotherapy
with a stem cell transplant.

Obviously, this was just not
what Sean wanted to hear.

Didn't want to do it all over again.

I said, "I know these people who
are supposed to be helping people

"with cancer,
and his wife's apparently

"cured her own breast cancer,"
and so on.

So, with that, Sean says,
"Well, I want to meet them."

And then, from there,
that's when it all started, really.

Sean's parents remembered a chance
encounter with a homoeopath called

Phillip Hughes, who claims he'd
successfully treated his wife Rosa

for breast cancer.

Dawn went along
to that first appointment.

Phil was just talking all
about how damaging chemotherapy is,

you know, on the human body
and, you know, saying,

"I've had lots of people come
to my clinic,

"but by the time I get them,

"they're shot with all this
chemotherapy, so I can't help them."

And then he was talking all about
how you can change your diet,

which can reverse cancer.

And he'd said that Rosa
had developed breast cancer.

She's had a lump in her breast

and she decided not to do
hospital treatments

and she was going to, you know,
reverse the cancer herself.

So obviously, Sean's listening
to this thinking,

"Well, if one person's done it,

"and then I'm hearing other little
stories off them, I can do this."

When his cancer returned,

Sean's doctors told him he had
at least a 50% chance

of long-term survival if he had
conventional treatment.

But Sean had decided
he didn't want chemotherapy

or any hospital treatment.

Instead, he and Aimee started
spending hours online,

researching alternatives
and cancer conspiracy theories.

Just scrolling on Instagram,
there's so many.

"The pharmaceutical industry
do not create cures.

"They create customers."

And people actually, like,

use memes as, like,
a valid source of information.

It's quite shocking, really,
isn't it?

Yeah, they're the type of stuff that
he'd use, like, to justify

what he was doing and, like,
he'd share things like this as well.

But then I understand that I was
at one point in a situation

where I believed this.

You're in your own bubble.

It really is, like, radicalisation
is the word I use,

because I just turned
into a different person.

Looking back at this now,
it's crazy how

I ever wrote like this
and thought this.

I remember from his videos
that at one point Sean believed

he could reverse his cancer
just by changing his diet.

So, his diet completely changed
fully. So he went fully organic,

fully vegan, raw, non-processed,
refined, sugar-free, gluten-free.

Pretty much everything.

Just raw foods, mainly.

He was avoiding certain vegetables
and certain fruits,

and the sort of list
of things he ate

just went smaller and smaller
and smaller.

And some days he just wouldn't eat
because he was afraid

of what he could and couldn't eat.
He was obsessed with his diet.

Thank you.

So, these are like the type of
supplements he'd take,

like vitamin D3, milk thistle,

digestive enzymes, B12.

So he'd pretty much take these types
of supplements every single day.

Sean, he sort of documented
his journey, didn't he?

He was... It's almost like he was
an influencer

for this alternative treatment
world. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, he was a little bit
of like a celebrity, really.

He got, like, thousands of, like,
little followers on Facebook

and stuff and views on his videos.

And it was almost like an echo
chamber on the internet -

all these people,
like, reinforcing his ideas.

I can't remember what this juice is,
but I think it's just a green one,

you get handed these every hour
alongside the carrot juice.

Sean believed he could cure his
cancer by detoxing

and completely
changing his lifestyle.

He went vegan, tried cannabis oil
and started doing coffee enemas.

Sounds disgusting,
but at the end of the day,

someone's got to talk about it.

That's an enema bucket.

That's oil.

I think you know
what the oil is for.

HE LAUGHS

There's the cleaning liquid.

So, there you have it, folks.

Here's a big jug of coffee
that's going straight up my ass.

Now, the reasons behind it,
going up the back...

..going up the back passage
is that it detoxifies you,

just pulls all the
crap out of you.

Now, not to get into gory detail,
but...

..if you've been eating a Western
diet your whole life - you know,

processed foods, white bread,
cereal -

just all this junk that's
got no nutrition in it,

what happens is, inside your body,
you get plaque on the...

..on the walls in your bowels.

So it kind of...
It rips all that out.

As Sean tried to cure his cancer

through these alternative
treatments,

he was also having scans
at Rosa and Phillip Hughes's clinic,

which he believed
were monitoring his cancer.

The couple provided them
through their company,

Medical Thermal Imaging.

Thermography uses an infrared camera
to take heat pictures of the body.

They describe their scans
as 100% safe and radiation-free.

It is legal to offer it, but the NHS
warns that there is no evidence

that thermography is an effective
way to either test for cancer

or to monitor its treatment.

Sean's thermography scans
were a huge part

of his approach to cancer.

They were Sean's evidence,
his hope, his confirmation

that it was working.

He'd say, you know, "Remember,
this is all backed up by this

"thermographic scan that my tumours
are shrinking."

Erm... Yeah, I think they were
pretty much the crux of everything.

And did they ever...
as far as you're aware... Yeah.

..encourage Sean to go for
the hospital scans as well,

or for conventional treatment?

No, they were totally against it.

And in Sean's words,

"It's like carrying a backpack
full of bricks on my back,

"and then when they tell me
everything's all clear on the scan,

"it's like taking the backpack off
for a bit and just feeling that

"weight just disappear off you."

So, a couple of days ago, Sean's
older brother Kev gave me a call

and said that he thinks he's managed
to get into Sean's e-mails,

so I'm just headed there now
to see if we can get in.

Just kind of get an insight
into how he was thinking.

Yeah, I'd found an e-mail from
online forums that Sean had been on.

Basically, what it says is,

"Over the last year my health
has improved dramatically.

"The further I walk away
from the doctors, that building

"and their so-called treatments,
the better I have became.

"I have even gained one stone
in weight.

"I get private scans via a
homoeopathic doctor that confirm

"what I'm doing is working.
I'm curing my own cancer."

At one stage, he thought his
alternative treatments were working.

Doctors had only given him eight
months to live without chemotherapy,

but Sean seemed to be doing
amazingly well.

His posts caught the attention
of an alternative clinic,

the Gerson Center in Mexico.

They invited him over
to stay for free,

but Sean had to pay
for some treatments.

He raised thousands of pounds
through fundraising and spent

at least $500 on laetrile therapy -

a treatment made
from apricot kernels,

which carries the risk
of cyanide poisoning.

Back home, we were all watching
the videos that he posted online.

I'll give you the sneak peek.

Everything, down to the scenery,

the food you're getting served,
the juices, the enemas,

the laetrile, the IVC.

Oh, I'll show you something
else, actually.

Here's an oxygen chamber.
I have to be very quiet because

someone's currently getting
some treatment done,

so I'll just show you a quick glance
of what it looks like.

Everything in here's about healing.
The total opposite of a hospital.

Anyone from Liverpool,
you go in the Royal Hospital,

what's the first thing you notice
when you go in there?

The cold, sterile,
clinical environment.

And then...

..you're having to deal
with these "doctors".

Doctors... Are they real...?

Are they doctors
or are they pill salesmen?

I'll leave that up to you to decide,

because I'm not too
fond of them myself.

We approached the Gerson Center
for a response.

Dr Patrick Vickers said...

He said that Sean didn't stick
to their diet and treatments,

and it was unfortunate
that he passed away,

"but it clearly had nothing to do
with our treatment."

When he got home,

Sean continued trying different
alternative treatments

and having thermography scans
with Rosa and Phillip Hughes.

When he came home from Mexico...

..he went for a scan and
they said, "We can't see nothing,"

so obviously Sean's thinking,
"Oh, the cancer's gone."

Disclaimers on Sean's
scan reports say...

..and recommend
further clinical investigation.

However, on reading their reports,
Sean believed his cancer had gone.

February, 2017.

August, 2017.

October, 2017.

But his mum
knew something wasn't right.

I'd seen him declining in
his health really rapidly,

and it got to the point where
he couldn't lie down to sleep,

he couldn't breathe properly.

He was in a bad...
He was in a bad way.

I got him straight to the hospital.

We didn't even have to wait in A&E

because they could see
how poorly he was.

Even one of the nurses said to me,

"Who has done this to him?"

For the first time in two years,

Sean allowed the hospital
to examine him.

He had that much fluid built up,

caused through the cancer.

He had a tumour the size of
a grapefruit in his stomach,

he had tumours all in his chest
and stuff.

Just got on the bed with him
and just said, "Come on, Sean..."

I just said, "Come on, Sean, wake
up, please, you can do this."

Obviously the scans were giving me
a false hope.

They were sort of reassuring me,

up until the point when he actually
went into hospital.

One of the nurses pulled me aside
on my own and was sort of saying,

"It doesn't look like he's got
much long left,"

and that's sort of when I realised,

"OK, what has been going
on the past two years?

"He clearly has not been curing
his own cancer.

"It's just been growing
all this time."

Doctors started Sean on chemotherapy
immediately,

but it was too late for the
treatments they'd recommended

when his cancer first came back.

He was in and out of hospital
for a year,

but in the end they said his cancer
had spread too much

and there was nothing
more they could do.

I had the...
Essentially the difficult job of...

..the difficult job of bringing

someone to terms with their own
death, their own mortality.

You know, "Time is running out
and you're going to pass away."

We both sat down, essentially,
on this hospital bed

that was in the corner
of the living room,

and...it was like I was
interviewing his life, like...

I asked him, what was the best
part of it?

And he said, "The music."

And then he said he felt it was...

..he felt it was unfair...

..that...

..he only had a short time and...

..you know, for someone who's...

..had cancer since the age of 17,

you never... He never got
to experience the full...

..years of being in your 20s
or past that.

And...

..essentially, he...

..he realised what was going
to be coming.

He realised he was passing away

and that he just wanted
to, you know, die.

Sean died in January 2019.

He was just 23.

Sean's mum told me she feared
other families had lost loved ones

after trying alternative treatments

so I started searching.

Sean's medical team told me his case
is just the tip of the iceberg.

I've arranged to meet Lorna,
a senior scientist

at Cambridge University.

Her mum, Linda, died in 2014.

We didn't know that she'd had cancer
until she died.

It was breast cancer.
She caught it really early.

She was advised to have a mastectomy
and chemotherapy and radiotherapy,

and told that if she did that
she had really good odds.

But quite quickly she decided
that she didn't want to do that.

She went to see Rosa to help
her monitor the growth and spread

of her cancer using thermal imaging.

And then...Phillip became
Mum's homoeopath.

Linda had always been wary
of conventional medicine.

Soon after she was diagnosed,
she turned down all NHS treatments

and started taking medicines such
as mistletoe injections

from a number of alternative
practitioners.

She had thermography scans with
Rosa Hughes,

which she thought
were tracking her cancer.

She was going to the clinic
and saying, "I think it's growing.

"I'm pretty sure
it's getting bigger."

And she could feel
it was getting bigger.

And yet the scans were saying
that it...that it wasn't,

that it wasn't growing.

And I think to some extent,

she was sort of lured into a false
sense of belief.

Phillip would prescribe her
a new homoeopathic treatment,

so I think she was sort of reassured
that she was doing something.

And just how expensive
were these treatments

that your mum was receiving?

Oh, she spent a lot of money and,
you know, thousands of pounds on it.

And that was really difficult
to see

how much was...she was spending
on supplements

and on these thermal imaging
treatments.

Linda started using a corrosive
herbal remedy called black salve,

which she got from another
alternative therapist.

She told her GP it was drawing
out her cancer.

The doctor said to my mum,
"That's an ulcerating...

"..tumour, and you have
an open wound,"

and, you know, told Mum the truth.

And I know that Mum was
very emotional and very upset.

I think she knew
it was probably too late

and couldn't face the truth
about what was happening.

But I think part of her knew.

Lorna had noticed her mum
behaving strangely.

But one phone call home made her
realise her mum was really ill.

I was getting worried at this stage
and I said to her,

"I think you need to go and see
a doctor," and she said,

"No, I'm in contact, regular contact
with a homoeopath from Liverpool."

And at that point, I got a bit cross
and said, you know,

"Mum, homoeopathy
doesn't...doesn't work."

And she went quite quiet
at that point,

but we said our goodbyes.

And that was the last time
I spoke to her.

Linda died a couple of days later.

An inquest found she died
of septicaemia caused

by the ulceration of her tumour.

The coroner said Linda
had made her own decisions

and was beyond persuasion.

If your mum didn't turn down
conventional treatment,

do you think she'd still be here
now? Absolutely.

I've now met two families
whose loved ones believed

they could cure their cancer
alternatively and took reassurance

from thermography scans that what
they were doing was working.

I want to find out for myself
what's going on inside the clinic.

SAT NAV: The destination
is on your right.

Medical Thermal Imaging.

Arrived.

So we made an appointment, posing
as a patient who'd found a lump.

This is the clinic where Sean came
for thermographic monitoring.

This is Rosa Hughes, who provided
scans for Sean and Linda.

Rosa Hughes was making quite
a lot of medical claims,

so I wanted to show our
recording to an expert.

I've come to The Christie
in Manchester

to meet Professor Andrew Wardley.

He's an oncologist,
but has also been a patient

and recovered from leukaemia.

I started with the footage of Rosa
advising against mammograms.

That's preposterous.
You don't burst tumours.

They're solid. You do squash
the breast down to do a mammogram,

it is unpleasant,
but it's a short-term thing.

You do not spread cancer
by doing a mammogram.

That's complete fallacy.

So, she's using some terms that are
commonly used in in cancer medicine

and cancer science, but the way
she's applying this is wrong.

The only way you can prove
it's a cancer is if you'd get

the tissue out and see cancer cells
under the microscope.

So, my suspicion would be that
she didn't have a cancer,

because cancers do not go
away spontaneously.

Is it possible that she could
have had cancer and recovered

naturally, like she says?
It's very, very unlikely.

I've never heard of a spontaneous
remission of a breast cancer.

She's actually advising people
not to get a diagnosis

and the treatment options
given to them properly,

so she's... This is dangerous,
in my opinion.

I think these sort of things
should be outlawed.

It makes me very concerned.

You know, I've been through
the worst treatment

you can possibly have.

I've had chemotherapy that
would...did wipe out all of my

bone marrow, whole-body
radiotherapy,

and I was extremely ill
and nearly died from the treatment,

but I would have definitely died

and died very quickly had I not
had the treatment.

For people with Hodgkin's disease,
the outcomes are excellent.

And more and more people are cured

or kept alive because of drug
treatments that are very effective.

There's so many things
that make me highly concerned

about this thing that she's doing,
which is very dangerous.

We invited Rosa and Phillip Hughes
to an interview.

In response, they said it is...

They...

As regards to Linda Halliday,
they said...

They said...

They also said...

I was really shocked
by what I'd heard

and wanted to give Aimee
and Dawn an update.

So, I found out as well that Sean's
testimonial is still being used

on the Mexico clinic's website.

AIMEE GASPS

So, on here, when you go on,
it has, like, success stories.

They've got here saying that

Sean's recently returned home and
his scan that he had

found that the largest tumour
appears to be dead

with no activity and no signs.

I mean, all them testimonies
that Sean was reading

and relying upon, how do we know
that they weren't already dead?

It's wrong, isn't it?
It needs to take them down.

We put our allegations to the
Gerson Clinic,

who have since
removed Sean's testimony.

They said they will take out
newspaper adverts about our team

if this documentary went ahead.

We went undercover at
Rosa and Phil's clinic recently.

We found out that they're still,
a year on from Sean dying,

they're still warning people
against hospitals.

How dare they say that to people?

They need to stop.

I don't know how they sleep
at night, to be honest. I don't.

You're vulnerable
when you've got cancer.

You're looking to yourself or
put yourself in remission at least,

or spend as much time with your
loved ones,

and you are going to
believe certain people

who are actually making money
out of the cancer industry

through vulnerable people.

One of the hardest things
to sort of get over

in life is betrayal.

Like, having...having
the carpet took

from underneath your feet, and

for him to get to that position...

..it was...it was
just...heart-breaking.

Sean introduced me to yoga,

so it's just really lovely
to carry it on.

And it's sort of a way for me
to connect with Sean.

I just want to help other people
and make sure that people aren't

misled down this path and lose
someone that they love over it.

It's my duty to get
this message across

and to get justice for Sean as well.

When I started following Sean's
attempts to cure himself

and saw how well he seemed
to be doing,

I knew one day I'd make
a documentary about him.

But this is not the film
I expected to make.

I've seen just how desperate
people can become

and realise now that the stories
online about cancer cures

may not be what they seem.