Olga Fandos, a 43-year-old resident of Deltebre, died of cancer after abandoning a chemotherapy treatment to undergo an alternative therapy. The case once again puts the focus on the impact of pseudotherapies and on the difficulty of stopping deceptive discourses in the field of health, especially when they affect people in situations of special vulnerability.
Warning about the scope of pseudotherapies
Emilio Molina, vice president of the Association for Protecting the Patient from Pseudoscientific Therapies, maintains that it is a far-reaching problem. The entity estimates that in Spain more than 1,000 deaths per year are linked to pseudotherapies.
"We are facing a problem of great magnitude, we estimate that there are more than 1,000 deaths each year in Spain due to pseudotherapies" - Emilio Molina, vice president of the APETP
Molina also warns that this kind of messages has gained ground in recent years. In his/her judgment, the expansion has become more visible since the pandemic, in a context in which this type of discourses circulate with ease and find loudspeakers on the internet and in closed messaging channels.
"There is a verifiable boom since the pandemic, because these charlatan discourses run rampant" - Emilio Molina, vice president of the APETP
The difficulty of taking these cases to court
The vice president of the association points out that the judicial response tends to be complex. He explains that many procedures end up framed within the freedom and autonomy of the patient, although behind it there may be, he maintains, a situation of manipulation and deception concerning a sick person.
"The judicial path is complex because many times these cases are dispatched for the freedom and autonomy of the patient, when in reality there has been manipulation and deceit" - Emilio Molina, vice-president of the APETP
Molina adds that, in these contexts, the affected person is in a position of special fragility in the face of messages that promise cures or alternatives without scientific basis. The association considers that this vulnerability should carry greater weight when addressing these cases.
Dissemination on the internet and prevention campaigns
The circulation of these contents also worries in the digital environment. Molina warns of the existence of Telegram groups with especially serious dynamics, while some platforms like YouTube try to remove publications that promote pseudotherapies or disseminate misleading health information contrary to the guidelines of health authorities.
"There are Telegram groups with appalling tendencies" - Emilio Molina, vice president of APETP
In Tarragona, concern over this phenomenon already led in 2021 to eight entities, including the colleges of doctors, nurses, and psychologists, to promote the campaign STOP intrusisme. The initiative was born to alert about the increase in the dissemination of false information and the risk it poses when presented as health advice.
The death of Olga Fandos now brings that alarm back to the forefront in the Terres de l'Ebre and reopens the debate on how to protect patients against practices without scientific backing that can distance them from proven medical treatments.