IRISH MEDICAL EXPERTS have warned that misinformation spread by Barbara O’Neill, an alternative health promoter who is banned in Australia from dispensing health advice, poses a danger to Irish patients. 

O’Neill is due to give four days of talks in Ireland next week, as well as further talks in a tour of the UK.

Letters sent to the venues hosting the events warn that they will likely spread medical misinformation and would be illegal if O’Neill held them in her native Australia.

The letters were signed by scientist David Robert Grimes and doctor Gary McGowan, as well as more than a dozen other doctors from Ireland, Australia and the United Kingdom, such as Aoife Ryan, Prof of Human Nutrition & Dietetics at University College Cork, and Colin Doherty, the head of the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. 

In a 28 September post on Instagram, published by David Robert Grimes and Gary McGowan, they say: “Barbara O’Neill is a self-described healer. Despite a ban in her native country, she gives lucrative talks, retreats and ‘consults’ worldwide.”

O’Neill will give three days of talks at a conference centre near the border between Meath and Dublin.

That event, called A Journey of Healing with Barbara O’Neill, is hosted by a religious group that promotes “Bible based health principles”, and is set to include talks on cancer, the “true cause of disease” and “rewiring the brain”.

A further one-day event is also advertised for a hotel in Ballybofey, Donegal.

O’Neill appears to be the only speaker at both events. 

In 2019, an investigation into O’Neill by the Australian Health Care Complaints Commission found that she had made “dubious and dangerous health claims regarding infant nutrition, causes and treatment of cancer, antibiotics and vaccinations that are not evidence-based or supported by mainstream medicine.”

The commission found that the misinformation she spread “has huge potential to have a detrimental effect on the health of individuals as Mrs O’Neill discourages mainstream treatment for cancer, antibiotics and vaccinations.”

The finding also permanently prohibited O’Neill from “providing any health services”, including educational services and psychological or alternative medicine treatments.

“Sadly, O’Neill’s followers believe her to be a martyr, sacrificing herself for their health in the face of the evil monolith of modern medicine,” Dr McGowan told The Journal. “In reality, many of her solutions, such as her ‘Wild Yam Cream’, are more expensive than many of the cheap medications she criticises.”

Some of O’Neill’s claims condemned by both the letters signed by Irish doctors and the Australian commission’s findings include misinformation about vaccines, infant nutrition, and the effects of antibiotics on children.

“O’Neill claims she can cure cancer, that cancer is a fungus, and that it can be cured by diet,” the letter signed by doctors and sent to the venues reads. “All these claims are utterly false and deeply harmful.

“Worse again, O’Neill consistently urges patients to abandon effective therapies like chemotherapy, scaremongering patients about medical treatment and engendering mistrust in healthcare teams.”

The Journal has contacted Barbara O’Neill for comment, but no response was received by the time of publication.