What was claimed
The Cancer Act 1939 makes it illegal for doctors to advise patients on cancer cures.
Our verdict
This isn’t true. The Act in fact restricts advertising treatments and cures for cancer to the general public.
No, doctors are not going to jail for trying to cure cancer
What was claimed
Medical practitioners have been jailed for attempting to cure cancer.
Our verdict
Full Fact has found no evidence of this having happened.
No, it’s not illegal for a doctor to advise you on cancer cures, and neither are they going to jail for trying to find a cure.
This is contrary to viral posts doing the rounds on Facebook that suggest a piece of legislation called the Cancer Act 1939 criminalises such activity.
Specifically, the posts claim “it’s actually a criminal offense for medical practitioners to even advise patients of potential cancer cures”; and “medical practitioners have been prosecuted for attempting to cure cancer … some have even been jailed for doing so”.
But the Cancer Act 1939 doesn’t do what the posts claim.
Honesty in public debate matters
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What does the Cancer Act 1939 say?
The Cancer Act was introduced with a number of intentions, but the one we’re concerned with here relates to advertising restrictions.
The Act prohibits “certain advertisements relating to cancer”, meaning no one can publish any kind of advert offering to treat people for cancer, prescribe any kind of remedy for it, or publish adverts with advice on how to treat cancer—this is the case for both proven treatments and alternative therapies.
As Cancer Research UK explains, this “blanket ban” is designed to protect cancer patients and the public from advertising. It was originally introduced to combat the promotion of unproven remedies at a time when licensed chemotherapy and radiotherapy were still quite primitive.
Advertisements are allowed, however, if the advertiser can prove it is intended to target MPs, local authorities or medical practitioners: essentially, people who are either responsible for treating patients or who make decisions about how to use NHS resources.
And it doesn’t apply when an advertisement is published by a local authority, the governing body of a voluntary hospital or anyone acting on “the sanction of the Minister”—i.e. the health secretary.
The Act has changed a lot since it was introduced more than 80 years ago, but this aspect—to restrict advertising—remains largely intact.
Are doctors going to jail for researching cancer cures?
Full Fact has found no evidence of this happening, and even if it did, the Cancer Act 1939 wouldn’t be the legislation behind it.
Many scientists based in the UK spend their whole career researching cancer treatments and cures, and don’t end up behind bars.
This claim could originate from the 15 month jail sentence served to Immuno Biotech boss David Noakes in 2018.
As the BBC reported at the time, Mr Noakes “illegally made and distributed GcMAF globally from the UK”—an unlicensed unproven product that some claim can cure cancer.
He had pleaded guilty to manufacturing, supplying and selling an unlicensed medicine, and money laundering.
Health misinformation that spreads at scale can introduce confusion about the causes and treatments of illnesses, create distrust of medical professionals, and distract from or undermine medical consensus and public health messaging.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because it misrepresents the provisions of the Cancer Act 1939.