NEW SOUTH WALES—Barbara O’Neill describes herself as a qualified naturopath and nutritionist and has worked at health retreats in Queensland, Victoria and NSW.
She gives lectures internationally, has authored books on health and nutrition, and appears in YouTube videos.
As a naturopath who informed clients that their cancer was a fungus that could be cured with bicarbonate soda rather than through conventional medical treatment, Barbara has been barred from practising for life, according to the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission.
The HCCC found:
“Mrs O’Neill does not recognise that she is misleading vulnerable people including mothers and cancer sufferers by providing very selective information.”
“The misinformation has huge potential to have a detrimental effect on the health of individuals as Mrs O’Neill discourages mainstream treatment for cancer, antibiotics and vaccination,” the commission’s decision, published in October, found.
She has been permanently barred from providing any health services either voluntarily or in a paid capacity, including giving lectures. This decision comes after the commission received complaints about O’Neill between October 2018 and January.
These included complaints about dietary advice for babies that O’Neill published on her personal website which, if followed, would lead to the child’s death or injury. According to the HCCC’s decision, O’Neill told the commission the dietary advice was based on her own experiences and she had never read the National Health and Medical Research Council’s infant feeding guidelines for health workers, which provide evidence-based recommendations.
A complaint was also received by the commission after O’Neill allegedly gave a lecture promoting the discredited theory that cancer is a fungus. The investigation found she encouraged clients to remove essential food groups from their diet such as fruits and carbohydrates, and to instead use probiotics and bicarbonate wraps to treat their cancer. According to the investigation, O’Neill falsely claimed in one lecture that a doctor had a 90% success rate curing cancer with sodium bicarbonate injections. According to HCCC, she produced no evidence to support the statistic.
According to the HCCC, O’Neill also gave advice based on theories from medical doctors who have been sued by their former patients for failing to treat them appropriately, including one doctor who was found guilty of manslaughter. The HCCC noted that after being informed by the commission of these legal cases, O’Neill said she would continue to use the advice from those discredited doctors in her lectures. HCCC claims that she also told her clients that following her treatments would be more successful if they gave up chemotherapy and other conventional treatments.
The HCCC noted that O’Neill frequently told the commission that she did not give clients advice, but merely provided them with information. The HCCC said this information included telling pregnant women not to take antibiotics for streptococcus B infections because “no baby has ever died from Strep B catching out of birth”. HCCC claimed that statistics from the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists indicate early-onset Strep B has a fatality rate of 14% in neonates, and is a risk that can be reduced by 80% with antibiotics.
The commission found that O’Neill is a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and usually delivered health lectures to congregants at church-organised events, and also lectured overseas and performed telephone consultations for a fee. The commission said she had no authority to provide advice in “highly complex and specialised areas such as cancer treatment, use of antibiotics for Strep B and immunisation”.
The Other Side of The Story
According to a client of Misty Mountain “Barbara has treated literally thousands of people over her years of care, and there has been not one complaint from any of them.”
Barbara O'Neill - world renown, much loved and highly respected Nutritionist and Health Director from Misty Mountain Health Retreat is in crisis right now, with the HCCC prohibiting her to practice or speak, following false allegations from 2 people involved in a political difference with Barbara's husband Michael O'Neill, for his involvement in a party that opposes compulsory medication. At least one of those making the allegations is an active member of the Australian Skeptics and the Friends of Science in Medicine, two organisations that use bullying and vilification extensively, and they are using the HCCC complaint process to punish or eliminate an opponent that has a differing ideology. Barbara has never advised these people, or had personal contact with them - it is purely a bullying tactic. Friends of Barbara O’Neill, Change.org
A petition on Barbara’s behalf has appeared on Change.org. There are currently 36,663 signatures.
A Source Link
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“If you listen carefully to the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you" (Exodus 15:26).