A Netflix miniseries “Apple Cider Vinegar” depicts alternative cancer treatments as being quackery

 by Edward Ulrich, February 27, 2025



A new Netflix miniseries “Apple Cider Vinegar” attempts to create an impression that people who question the medical establishment’s methods of cancer treatments are either corrupt or naive, where it depicts two women who are wellness gurus whose lives are loosely connected.

The first is a well-meaning woman named Milla who became diagnosed with cancer and took a gamble and decided to treat it holistically, where she had success and afterwards she became a social media influencer about her experience.

The second woman named Belle Gibson is a mentally ill pathological liar with a manipulative personalty who has been faking illnesses for her entire life in order to receive attention, where she became infatuated with Milla’s situation and set out to also become a social media influencer by claiming that she had brain cancer and was able to cure it.  Due to manipulating people she became popular online and wealthy by creating an App for mobile devices which touted “healthy eating” recipes that she said cures cancer.

In the show the first woman Milla died of cancer some years after she put herself into remission using her holistic methods, and her mother died as well due to attempting holistic treatments.

The second woman Belle was eventually exposed for her deception which included stealing money that she said would go to charity, where she was convicted in Australia of misleading and deceptive conduct as was ordered to pay $400,000.

Both of the characters are based on a true story of a situation that happened in Australia in the 2010’s, as this Time article explains.

The filmmakers turned the story into a pro-Establishment medical propaganda vehicle, where they depict alternative cancer therapies as being nothing more than drinking fruit juice and receiving enemas every day.  The Time article says, “The show’s title is a nod to wellness gurus who often tout apple cider vinegar as a cure-all, though it wasn’t necessarily Gibson’s go-to cure-all.”

The filmmakers also portrayed a holistic wellness center in Mexico as being quackery, where it don’t follow any scientific procedures and it didn’t track the progress of the cancer that they said they are healing.

As indicative of the mentalities of the people associated with the show, the Time article says, “[The actress] Strauss sees the show, which follows Belle’s rise and fall after her lie is discovered, as a PSA about scammers in the wellness industry at a time when anti-vax sentiments and bogus COVID treatments became rampant at the height of the pandemic.”

I do agree that people should not reject conventional cancer treatments outright, but rather if it is possible they should attempt to treat it holistically first while tracking its progress, and then proceed with traditional treatments such as chemotherapy if it is still necessary to do so.

Personally I believe that the Nitriloside method of treating cancer is effective, and it is possible for the effectiveness of that method to be definitively proven one way or the other, as this article explains.