A vicious treatment is sweeping the vegan and "natural healing" community. It's called Black Salve, and it's a sort of paste that supporters say can cure cancer and other diseases. It obviously can't, but while other bogus health treatments are harmless, like sniffing essential oils or drinking your own piss, Black Salve will burn through your skin and leave you permanently disfigured.

The photos of Black Salve results (or Vegan Salve as it's sometimes called) are extremely graphic. We don't want to include them in this post – they are disgusting enough to make you feel sick. Black Salve burns are so severe, they can tear holes through skin and sizzle into flesh. Google Images shows a stomach-churning gallery of disfigured faces where noses have huge holes taken out of them. No surprise that doctors have called Black Salve "dangerous", "harmful" and even "life-threatening".

Somehow this hasn't stopped the vegan and alternative medicine community from pushing this corrosive poison on desperately sick people. In Facebook pages and groups devoted to veganism and "researching natural cures," irresponsible users encourage sick people to smear Black Salve on themselves.

"Black salve is amazing for safely removing cancers," says a commenter in a Facebook group called From Hellville To Wellville, a community that promotes a raw fruit-only diet. "It only pulls cancer or bad cells versus Doc's cutting a questionable amount."

"I am doing black salve and it is definitely cleansing my blood," gushes a comment in response to a question about how to survive cancer. It was posted on Natural Healing & Cancer Cures Research Group.

"Has anyone used black salve for breast cancer?" asks a nervous poster on a similarly titled Facebook group for discussing raw diets and cancer. "I ordered salve & capsules, and I'm scared to take them. The salve eats out the tumor, and leaves a hole in the breast. I'm scared it will eat my stomach if I take the caps."

People underneath her post pile in and encourage her to use Black Salve. "It's amazing because it targets ONLY cancerous cells and leaves the others alone so they regenerate and scarring is minimal in the end," says one group member. "Black salve only eats cancer cells. It won't eat normal cells or tissue," adds a commenter. "This is something that goes back to the medicine man and Native Americans," says another.

Let's be clear – Black Salve is a harmful, dangerous scam. It scars the skin, has been known to kill people, and preys on desperate patients looking for a cure. "There is a misperception that black salve ‘draws the cancer out,’ when, in fact, it just indiscriminately damages anything it touches," said board-certified dermatologist Dr Mark J. Eliason. He was quoted in a warning about Black Salve, which cites a death caused by the paste. "One of the reasons black salve treatment is so dangerous is that many users have no idea how harmful it can be."

The Facebook groups don't include comments about how Black Salve didn't do anything but damage and scar skin. But the Amazon reviews do:

Call Black Salve what it is – a sham peddled by weirdos without medical degrees. Don't take it, and if someone tries to tell you it's a natural cure and "draws out all the toxins," tell them to fuck off.

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@hshukman