THERE HAVE BEEN calls for hotels in Ireland to refuse to host two events featuring ‘health expert’ Brian Clement who has claimed to have cured people of cancer by putting them on a strict raw vegan diet.
Clement is co-director of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida, a spa which offers treatments like cold laser therapy and vitamin C injections and encourages patients to adopt a raw food diet. In the past, when asked what ailments the spa had cured with this diet, Clement responded: “Every known disease.”
“Of course, we are most notable for all of the people that have healed cancer.”
The man’s controversial claims have come under fire and he was fined by Florida’s Department of Health for representing himself as a doctor and ordered to stop practicing medicine. The fine was later withdrawn, however, due to a lack of evidence.
Now a group called Cork Skeptics is calling for two hotels in Galway and Dublin to cancel events he is due to speak at this month. The group has been campaigning to force the hotels to withdraw offers to host his lectures.
Today the Clayton Hotel confirmed on Twitter that the event previously planned for 23 June will no longer take place there:
A spokesperson for the hotel declined to say whether the hotel or the organisers had changed plans.
However tickets are still being sold for a Galway event on that day – now located at the Connacht Hotel. When contacted by TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson for this hotel said they had not been aware of the controversy surrounding the event and would “speak to management about it and we’ll see what happens”.
Tickets are also still on sale for the Dublin event, which is being held the next day at the Carlton Hotel near Dublin Airport.
A woman called Bernadette Bohan, who is a cancer survivor, is co-hosting the event.
She says on her blog she met Clement after her second cancer diagnosis and was in the throes of dealing with cancer treatments, looking to find the answer to the challenges she was facing.
“I have followed the programme for the past 15 years and thankfully my health has improved dramatically over that time. That unexpected talk in Dublin opened a gateway to a different approach to healing for me, it changed my life immeasurably and has been one of the key factors in helping me turn my life around,” she says.
Bohan did not return calls from TheJournal.ie requesting comment.
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