A claim circulating among online users in Pakistan asserts that drinking tea made from the dandelion plant’s roots can kill cancer cells within 48 hours and cure cancer. The post further alleges that this herbal tea is more effective than chemotherapy in treating the disease.
This claim is mostly false and is not supported by any scientific evidence.
Claim
“A plant that can destroy cancer cells in just 48 hours,” read a post on Facebook on January 17. “This plant is more effective than chemotherapy.”
The post then goes on to claim that the most remarkable aspect of dandelion tea is that it supposedly works without harming healthy cells and only targets cancerous ones.
“A 72-year-old man, John Di Carlo, personally experienced the healing properties of dandelion after three years of failed treatments. He started drinking tea made from dandelion root, and in just four months, he was fully recovered,” the text claims.
The post has been shared over 9,200 times and has garnered over 9,000 likes.
Similar claims were also shared on Facebook here and here.
Fact
There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that dandelion root can cure cancer, doctors confirm.
Dr Natasha Ali, a professor of hematology at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, dismisses the online claims. “There is no evidence to suggest that dandelion root can cure cancer,” Dr Ali told Geo Fact Check over the phone. She added that studies have shown dandelion root to have anti-inflammatory and anti-depressant properties.
Dr Rab Nawaz Maken, head of the oncology department at the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Oncology in Lahore, echoed this sentiment. “There is no scientific evidence to support such claims,” he said.
Maken further emphasized that medical professionals rely on trusted sources, such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to determine whether a treatment has undergone rigorous clinical trials, including Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 studies.
Geo Fact Check also reached out to Khawaja Nazir, senior manager of media and public relations at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Lahore, who confirmed: “There are no human clinical trials on dandelion roots that prove these claims.” Nazir added that chemotherapy remains a cornerstone of cancer treatment, supported by decades of clinical data.
The social media posts also mention John Di Carlo, a 72-year-old man whose cancer was supposedly cured by drinking dandelion tea. Geo Fact Check researched this case and found an article from 2012 about John Di Carlo’s treatment in Canada. According to the article, Di Carlo’s leukemia went into remission after drinking dandelion tea at home.
However, this claim was later fact-checked by several news outlets. In a fact-check by USA Today, the New York-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center stated that there is no conclusive clinical evidence to suggest dandelion root extract can treat cancer in humans.
The fact-check also noted that while some studies have been conducted on the effects of dandelion root on cancer cells in a petri dish, no clinical studies have been done on human patients. Thus, no published research has proven its anti-cancer effects in humans.
The USA Today, PolitiFact, and Snopes have already fact-checked these claims.
Verdict: The claim that dandelion root can kill 98% of cancer cells in 48 hours lacks scientific basis. No clinical studies have shown its effect on human cancer patients.
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