An undercover investigation by BBC 5 live has discovered an unlicensed blood product being sold illegally by a Bournemouth health food store.
After a tip off that a retailer was selling the product as a “cure” for cancer a 5 live reporter, posing as a consumer, visited Earth Foods in Southborne.
The treatment the store was offering for sale is known as GcMAF, an injectable product made from blood, which its supporters claim is an effective treatment – even cure – for cancer and autism.
5 live secretly filmed a discussion between its undercover reporter and a store representative called Nick Greenwood. The reporter told Greenwood she was seeking GcMAF for a relative with cancer, and was told: “It is one of the best ways to try and tackle it”. She was offered a month’s supply for £600 and told the product would need to be taken for six to 12 months. In the form the treatment was being offered, patients are told to self-inject 0.5ml of GcMAF every four days, and spray the product under the tongue twice daily.
After the consultation the undercover reporter received a treatment “protocol” from the store’s supplier, a British woman called Amanda Mary Jewell, who is now based in Mexico. In an email, Jewell claimed to have been “100% successful thus far at eradicating brain tumours”, using a combination of GcMAF and other non-conventional therapies.
5 live says that in a follow up telephone call, Nick Greenwood advised using GcMAF in preference to conventional treatments, saying: “What other way is there to go? I definitely don’t recommend chemotherapy. And there’s nobody in the world of natural medicine that does.”
Proponents of GcMAF claim that it is an immunomodulatory protein that has anti tumour properties and strengthens the immune system by macrophage activation. However the evidence for this has been widely challenged by medial scientists and cancer charities. GcMAF is considered an ‘unlicensed medicine in the UK and it is illegal to sell to drug.
Peter Johnson, chief clinician at Cancer Research UK and a professor of medical oncology, told 5 live: “The papers that have been published about GcMAF are scientifically extremely dubious and several of them have been retracted after publication because of doubts about the evidence that they presented.” He said seeking financial gain by selling such products was “a very dubious practice”.
Mahadev Bogdanovich, general manager at Earth Foods, told NPN that he preferred not to answer our questions at this point in time, but insisted that “nobody at Earth Foods would knowingly breach any regulations.”
