A Yale-educated oncologist has hit out at detractors who claimed an influencer was faking her cancer diagnosis.
Sydney Towle, now 25, already had scores of online followers on TikTok when she tearfully announced in 2023 that she had a rare and aggressive form of cancer, known as cholangiocarcinoma.
As she shared her life undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments for the bile duct cancer, her fanbase grew and she now has more than 770,000 followers on the video sharing site.
But as Towle’s popularity grew – so did her critics, who maliciously claimed they found evidence the CancerTok influencer was faking her diagnosis, according to the New York Times.
They pointed to her videos showing her traveling around the world and what they saw as contradictions in her treatment on an anonymous Reddit page.
The detractors even put together a 28-page timeline of medical details Towle shared online, using it to bolster their claims that Towle was lying about having cancer for public sympathy and monetary gain.
Yet Dr. Ghassan Abou-Alta, who specializes in liver and bile duct cancers and treats Towle – has now put an end to the debate.
‘She has cancer,’ he told the Times, categorizing her illness as Stage IV.
Sydney Towle, now 25, announced in 2023 that she had a rare and aggressive form of cancer , known as cholangiocarcinoma
Her doctor, Ghassan Abou-Alta, has confirmed her diagnosis – despite a cabal of anonymous Reddit users who claimed they found proof Towle was faking it
He described how Towle’s cancer started in the bile ducts in the liver, and after an initial surgery to remove the original tumor, the cancer recurred in her liver.
Tumors were also detected in lymph nodes next to her liver, Abou-Alta said from his office at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
The doctor then went on to commend Towle for shining a light on young people who are fighting cancer, more and more of whom are diagnosed every day.
Many of them can maintain a fairly normal schedule, even when undergoing chemotherapy, Abou-Alta explained.
‘We literally have people who come to us for treatment on their lunchtime from the office and then go back to work,’ he noted.
‘Patients really can live with cancer. Not everybody should be looking as if they were dying.’
Of course not everyone will tolerate chemotherapy as well as Towle, but a number are, he said.
‘A young patient like Sydney, or at any age really, can keep going and look very good,’ the doctor said. ‘But it does not undermine that she’s still living with a very serious matter.’
As Towle shared her life undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments for the bile duct cancer, her fanbase grew and she now has more than 770,000 followers on TikTok
When the oncologist was then told that skeptics on Reddit thought Towle was lying about her diagnosis, Abou-Alta reportedly hung his head and shook it in disbelief.
He then recounted how he had told Towle that the point of undergoing chemotherapy is to preserve and prolong life – something that she should cherish.
‘Always what I tell her is, “We want to steal from you one day per week” for treatment,’ the doctor said. ‘”That’s when you’re a sick person. We have to keep the other six days for you.”‘
Yet those on the so-called ‘snark’ Reddit page have claimed Towle’s often cheerful videos are proof that she does not actually have cancer.
They started the page last fall, as Towle moved from her native California to New York City for treatment.
Its rules included: ‘No defending Syd.’
Critics claimed she would not be traveling around and posting cheerful videos if she were truly sick
At the time, the Redditors noted that Towle had planned a three-week trip to Europe ahead of her move – questioning why someone with cancer would take a break from treatment for vacation, only to return to make dramatic videos about her illness.
The backlash then intensified over the winter, when the anonymous posters argued that she was not undergoing much chemotherapy.
They noted that Towle maintained her long hair, and zoomed in on videos Towle posted to look for signs of a port – a medical device that is implanted in patients to facilitate chemo treatments and ease blood draws.
When they didn’t find evidence of one, the Redditors concluded Towle must be lying about her diagnosis.
Then, when she posted a video showing a port implanted not on her upper chest – as is usual – but on the underside of her arm, they remained skeptical.
And even when Towle posted a video in which she appeared to be at a chemotherapy appointment in March, she was hit with backlash just days later, for posting another video showing her with her brother, Austin, in the Caribbean.
‘This is us before going scuba diving in the ocean – for the first time,’ she wrote in the TikTok video.
In the next scene, Towle and her brother were seen wearing wetsuits, which Towle said ‘is us after our first dive.’
The brother-and-sister duo were in Jamaica for a friend’s wedding, but on Reddit, critics saw the stark juxtaposition as evidence she was not sick.
‘Syd must WANT to be ousted,’ one commentator wrote.
‘Don’t worry, she’ll be back with the fake nausea and baby voice in no time,’ another added.
Eventually, the Reddit page had more than 1,000 members who accused Towle of manufacturing emotion on camera to manipulate sympathetic followers.
The critics pointed out that Towle maintained her long hair, despite undergoing chemo
One of the biggest detractors was a Redditor with the username Beginning_Field_2421, who was found to be Connie Wright – a privacy officer for Valley Health System in Bergen County, New Jersey who shapes and manages the organization’s patient privacy practices, according to her LinkedIn.
‘We have receipts, medical analysis, fact-checking discussions,’ she wrote on the page, urging others to ‘join the conversation and tell us how you found out and why you may have doubts.’
She also shared posts with headings like, ‘Sydney Towle- Were you lying then or now?’ and ‘How to spot when Sydney Towle is lying: Her biggest tells, which catalogued her ‘slow blinks, pauses and squinting.’
Wright also used some strong language in her posts, once reportedly writing: ‘I’ve never disbelieved or hated this phony b more than today.’
Others were also alarmed when Google said cholangiocarcinoma ‘often affects adults in their 70s’ and carries a ‘usually poor’ prognosis in cases in which the cancer advanced, as had Towle’s.
Many of the detractors did not seem concerned about their hostility, the Times reports.
‘If she fabricated any part of her story, it’s deeply unethical and she deserves backlash,’ Beginning_Fields_2421 wrote as others hit out at Towle for accepting donations from some of her followers.
‘Being a public figure comes with scrutiny – it’s part of the job.’
Eventually, the hostility spread beyond the Internet, as Wright urged people to complain about Towle to the companies whose products she endorsed and suggested that Reddit commentators show up at a cancer research fundraiser that Towle would be attending.
Someone else also suggested sending Towle’s photo to cancer hospitals, implying they need to be alerted of a potential fraudster, according to the Times.
A third Redditor even contacted the Jamaican scuba company where she and her brother had gone diving, asking about the protocol for allowing cancer patients to participate.
Meanwhile, Towle also noticed a surge in criticism on TikTok.
‘My comments have been so inundated with people being like, “You will burn in hell. You are lying,”‘ she told the Times, adding that she also received death threats.
The comments left her feeling stuck, because if she quit social media, she feared her followers would believe she had something to hide.
‘I’m sorry that they are so angry that living with cancer can look different than they think it should,’ she said.
In a video after the article was published, Towle finally addressed the hatred she received to her TikTok followers.
‘I haven’t really addressed this because I was quite frankly shocked when I found out this was a thing – and I wasn’t sure how else to prove I have cancer because I was posting at chemo every week,’ she said.
‘I also know that I know what I’m going through, my friends and family know what I’m going through and that is ultimately what matters the most.
‘But it has taken a significant toll on my mental health… It has been a lot,’ she admitted.
Towle concluded by saying she hopes the article ‘reinforces that you do not know what someone is going through.
‘Just because I am traveling, hanging out with my friends and doing normal things doesn’t mean that I don’t have Stage IV cancer,’ she said, before thanking ‘everyone who has supported me, because none of the negativity negates how much I appreciate the support of everyone on here.’
