WHEN HOPE BECOMES A BUSINESS

Why do the vulnerable still fall through the cracks — and why does nobody seem to stop it?

By Steven Millard — Opinion

I’ve spent months listening to recordings, reading transcripts, and sitting face-to-face with people who truly believe they are saving lives.

And I keep coming back to one uncomfortable question:

How is this still allowed to happen in 2026?

We live in a world of advanced medicine, strict advertising rules, and endless consumer protections. We’re warned about everything — from data cookies to TV licences — yet somehow a grey marketplace of “miracle-adjacent” therapies continues to thrive in plain sight.

People at their most desperate — the frightened partner, the exhausted parent, the widow clinging to one last possibility — are still finding themselves in conversations where hope has a price tag.

Sometimes that price tag is tens of thousands.

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The Vulnerability Gap

There’s a moment that stays with you when you work on investigations like this. It isn’t the science talk or the polished presentations. It’s the quiet stories behind them.

A spouse remortgaging a house.
A pension emptied.
A family crowdfunding a “chance”.

Whether the treatments are framed as cutting-edge immunotherapy, regenerative medicine, or something else entirely, the emotional dynamic is always the same:

Someone is fighting for more time.

And in that space — between fear and hope — an industry has learned to operate.

Not always illegally. Not always explicitly promising cures.

But always dancing close enough to the edge that the difference between possibility and promise becomes blurred.

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The Silence That Speaks Loudest

What troubles me most is not just the individuals involved — it’s the system around them.

Where are the serious investigations?
Where is the urgency?

People can be fined for the smallest regulatory breaches, yet when enormous sums of money change hands under the banner of experimental health claims, the response often feels slow, fragmented, or absent.

That silence sends a message.

It tells the public that maybe this isn’t serious enough to matter.

But sit across from someone who has lost everything chasing hope, and you realise just how serious it is.

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Science vs Sales

Let me be clear: science moves forward because people push boundaries. Innovation is necessary. New therapies deserve research and debate.

But there is a difference between pioneering medicine and selling belief.

When complex scientific language becomes marketing, when patients cannot easily distinguish between clinical evidence and early-stage theory, the responsibility shifts.

Because the average person is not a scientist. They are someone who wants their loved one to live.

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The Real Cost

The greatest harm isn’t always financial — though that alone can be devastating.

It’s the emotional aftermath.

The quiet realisation that hope may have been packaged, priced, and presented in a way that felt certain when it wasn’t.

I’ve spoken to people who don’t even want refunds. They just want acknowledgement — someone to say that what happened to them matters.

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Why This Story Matters

Some will say these are complex medical debates.

Others will argue that patients should do more research.

But I don’t believe the burden should fall entirely on the vulnerable.

When hope becomes a business model, society has a duty to ask hard questions.

And if authorities hesitate, journalists — and the public — must keep shining a light.

Because this isn’t just about one clinic or one conversation.

It’s about a system where grief, fear, and love can be turned into currency — while the line between innovation and exploitation grows thinner every year.