An author whose cousin died after undergoing a risky and unproven medical procedure overseas has urged families to keep communication open with loved ones who become drawn into unsafe alternative health treatments.
Hannah McElhinney, the author of Wormhole, has written about the death of her cousin Lauren, who was found in a coma at a large public hospital in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, after receiving treatment for chronic Lyme disease. Lauren died two days later. She was 37.
McElhinney said her family had spent years asking what could be done when someone with serious or persistent health problems begins following regimens that appear dangerous. Her account links Lauren’s experience to wider concerns about chronic illness, medical mistrust, wellness culture and misinformation.
Writing about the case, McElhinney said discussions about symptoms and possible treatments are common among women from their mid-30s onwards, particularly where conditions such as bloating, brain fog, migraines and severe period pain are involved. She said distrust in mainstream medicine can grow when women feel their symptoms have been dismissed or poorly treated.
“With medical biases and discrimination wreaking havoc on women’s health and destroying trust in mainstream medicine, it’s little wonder why many of us remain vigilant for anything that may help us feel better,” she wrote.
McElhinney said she had accompanied Lauren as she tried treatments that sounded increasingly unusual, but later came to believe that ridicule or blunt dismissal could make it harder to talk about risk. She said she had previously mocked or shut down some of Lauren’s views, including those about vaccines, without asking how experiences of fibromyalgia and ME/CFS may have contributed to her loss of trust in medicine.
According to McElhinney, Lauren knew relatives disapproved of some of the products and practices she was using, including chlorine dioxide, described by McElhinney as bleach, and sheep dip bought from veterinary supply stores to consume orally. As a result, she said, Lauren sometimes kept those treatments secret.
McElhinney argued that judgmental terms such as “quack”, “grifter”, “anti-vaxxer” and “scammer” can prevent productive conversations, even where relatives believe the language is accurate. She said that when patients feel shamed, families may lose the opportunity to talk openly about danger.
Her account highlights people with chronic health conditions and invisible illnesses as particularly vulnerable to risky alternative treatments. McElhinney said female pain is consistently underestimated compared with male pain, and noted that conditions affecting women more frequently, including endometriosis, can take six to eight years to diagnose.
She said this “systemic invalidation” of symptoms can erode trust in medical systems and drive patients towards unproven options, even at the expense of evidence-based care.
McElhinney said relatives and friends should remain firm in acknowledging a person’s symptoms and help them seek care that takes their experiences seriously. For fluctuating conditions such as fibromyalgia, she said symptoms may change or disappear, and patients should not always have to justify why.
Practical support, such as offering a heat pack, rearranging plans or running an errand, can signal that pain does not need to be visible to be believed, she said.
The author also urged families to scrutinise the commercial side of alternative medicine. She said a common phrase in alternative health and conspiracy circles is “follow the money”, usually aimed at the pharmaceutical industry, but argued that the same test should be applied to alternative providers. She cited a projection that the alternative medicine market will be worth US$1,282.70bn by 2034.
During her research into Lauren’s experience, McElhinney said she found providers charging large sums for supplements, enema kits and video calls, with access in some cases reserved for higher-paying subscribers. She said some websites claimed treatments were supported by studies, but the studies were sometimes conducted by the companies selling the products and were not peer-reviewed.
One company, she said, sold Lauren non-standard tests that repeatedly suggested she needed another six months of treatment. McElhinney also described a holistic doctor who, she said, spent a two-hour phone call pressuring her aunt to spend $1,000 a week for five years.
She said some alternative practitioners portrayed Lauren’s family as unsupportive when they refused to fund high-risk treatments, even when the cost would have been financially devastating.
McElhinney said families may not always be able to prevent harm, even when they remain involved. She wrote that her aunt “did everything she could” to keep Lauren safe, and said no one who has lost a relative in such circumstances should have to carry the burden of wondering what they could have done differently.
She described the issue as systemic, involving medical misogyny, misinformation, wellness culture and a lack of adequate care for chronic conditions that do not fit neatly into diagnostic categories.
Until those issues are addressed, McElhinney said, families and friends will continue to play a central role in validating symptoms, listening, encouraging quality care and maintaining open discussion about risks.
Wormhole by Hannah McElhinney is out now via Affirm Press.
