Gerald Hanks
A Houston woman who ran a YouTube channel claiming a vegan lifestyle cured her breast cancer reportedly passed away from her disease late last year.
Videos by Rare
Mari Lopez and her niece, Liz Johnson, ran the popular YouTube channel “Liz and Mari,” where the pair discussed vegan diets and holistic health remedies as cures for various diseases, including cancer.
Lopez died in December 2017, but Johnson revealed the news earlier this week through a YouTube video.
The website shows the duo launched their channel in 2015, touting the virtues of a meat-free diet, juicing and holistic remedies.
In June 2016, the pair posted a video claiming Lopez to be cured of Stage 4 breast cancer “by turning to God and changing her lifestyle and eating habits.”
The pair made free videos for the YouTube channel, as well as videos behind a paywall on Vimeo.
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In late 2017, however, Lopez’s health reportedly began to deteriorate, when she all but abandoned the holistic lifestyle and began traditional cancer treatments of radiation and chemotherapy.
By the time she started her treatments, her breast cancer metastasized, spreading to her lungs, blood and liver.
Before she passed away, Lopez allegedly asked Johnson to take down the videos touting lemon juice and ginger as cancer cures, but Johnson refused:
“She was upset because her cancer had come back,” Johnson said in an interview with the online magazine ‘Babe.’ “I can understand how maybe she didn’t want to give people false hope. I had to pray a lot about it, because I could feel her pain. But in my own relationship with God, I knew it could still help people, it could still make a difference in people’s lives, it could still give hope.”
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Johnson posted a video on their channel on Sunday to break the news about Lopez’s death, during which she said she turned off the comments due to “disrespectful” remarks left by viewers.
She also said she would continue running the channel, offering health and financial advice for subscribers.
May her aunt RIP.
