Does Ellen White Deserve a Nobel Prize?

By Dirk Anderson, last updated Nov. 2025

The myth that Mrs. White was years ahead of science was popularized in the 1972 book Prophet of Destiny written by Rene Noorbergen.¹ Noorbergen, who previously published books extolling psychics Jeanne Dixon, David Bubar, and Nostradamus, wrote thus of Ellen White:

We have noted but a very few of the scientific insights that were given to Ellen White. Many more could be mentioned; enough in fact to quite fill this book. For example: Cancer is caused by a germ...²

Noorbergen and others have suggested that Mrs. White's use of the term "germ" in reference to cancer indicates she had "supernatural knowledge" and was "years ahead" of later scientific discoveries that have attributed the cause of certain cancers to viruses. Is it true that Mrs. White's ideas about the cause of cancer were decades ahead of science?

Where Did She Get Her Teaching on Cancer?

Mrs. White taught that by ingesting meat, the "cancerous germs" could be transferred to humans, thus causing cancer in humans:

People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculous and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated.³

Ellen White was not the first to speculate about the connection between meat eating and cancer. In L.B. Coles' book, Philosophy of Health, published in 1853—many years before Ellen White's first health reform vision—Coles linked cancer with the eating of flesh meats:

If we use food adapted to create cancerous, scrofulous, or any other humors, we run the risk of having such humors develop themselves, sooner or later, in some part of the system.⁴

There is strong evidence Mrs. White plagiarized heavily from Coles' books. Therefore, it seems probable she got her ideas about cancer from L.B. Coles rather than from supernatural sources.

In the 19th century, a number of scientists theorized that cancer, tuberculosis, leprosy, and syphilis were caused by bacteria, microbes, or parasites. For example,

On December 3, 1890 William Russell, a pathologist in the School of Medicine at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, gave an address to the Pathological Society of London in which he outlined his histopathologic findings of 'a characteristic organism of cancer' that he observed microscopically in tissue sections from all forms of cancer that he examined, as well as in certain cases of tuberculosis, syphilis and skin infection.⁵

Ultimately, because cancer failed to behave as a contagious or infectious disease and no specific "cancer germ" was ever identified, the theory was definitively abandoned by the early 1900s.

Can I get Cancer from Eating Cancerous Meat?

One of the primary historical concerns regarding meat consumption was the fear that eating meat from a diseased animal could transmit cancer via a microbe (germ) or cancerous cell. This concern, however, is definitively refuted by several foundational principles of human and digestive biology.

The primary reason ingesting a cancer cell is harmless is that cancer is a disease of the host's DNA, not a transmissible, self-replicating microorganism like a bacterium or virus.

Every cell in an animal carries unique surface markers that identify it as "self." When a person ingest a cell from a different species, the gastrointestinal tract and immune system recognize it as "non-self" and destroy it. The cancer cell cannot bypass this transplantation barrier.

The human digestive system is designed to break down proteins (including all cells, whether cancerous or healthy) into their basic building blocks (amino acids). Any cancer cell present in cooked or even raw meat would be rapidly disassembled by stomach acid and digestive enzymes long before it could enter the bloodstream or colonize human tissue.

The idea that a "cancer-causing germ" would survive the heat of cooking and the human digestive tract, then travel through the body to start a human tumor, lacks modern scientific basis. Despite the intensive 19th-century search for a "cancer germ," no single bacterium or parasite has ever been found to be the universal cause of human cancer. As noted in historical experiments, even when live cancer cells or tumor extracts are directly injected into laboratory animals of a different species, they fail to cause cancer. Dr. Gregory Hunt, in his book Beware This Cult, explains:

It is true that many varieties of germs, molds, and microscopic parasites can often be cultivated from various kinds of tumors, but when these microscopic organisms are injected into animals they fail to cause any cancerous or other tumors to grow. ... If they fail to cause cancer when injected, they won't when ingested.⁶

Fact Check: Mrs. White was wrong. The biological and immunological barriers mentioned above make it scientifically impossible to acquire cancer by eating meat, regardless of the meat's condition.

Changing Words

In her early writings, Mrs. White, like L.B. Coles, used the term "cancerous humors."⁷ A humor is defined in the 1828 version of Webster's Dictionary as:

Moisture; but the word is chiefly used to express the moisture or fluids of animal bodies, as the humors of the eye. But more generally the word is used to express a fluid in its morbid or vitiated state. Hence, in popular speech, we often hear it said, the blood is full of humors.

Dr. Ronald Numbers notes that after Mrs. White learned of the existence of germs, she changed her terminology:

In her early writings she had described how flesh-meats filled the blood 'with cancerous and scrofulous humors.' Within a few decades, however, scientists like Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch had convinced the world of the existence of germs, and Mrs. White's language changed accordingly. The familiar humors disappeared from her works, and she began writing instead of meat filling the body with "tuberculous and cancerous germs.⁸

Viruses were discovered during Mrs. White's lifetime, but it us unknown if she was aware of them because she never used the term "virus" in her writings. At first, she said cancer was caused by a humor. Later, after the existence of germs was proven, she said it was caused by a germ. However, a germ is a bacterium, not a virus. Now, modern proponents of Mrs. White would have us to believe that Mrs. White actually meant "viruses" when she wrote "germs."

Viruses and Germs: What is the Difference?

WebMD explains:

Although bacteria and viruses are both too small to be seen without a microscope, they're as different as giraffes and goldfish. Bacteria are relatively complex, single-celled creatures, often with a rigid wall and a thin, rubbery membrane surrounding the fluid inside the cell. ... Viruses are tinier; the largest of them are smaller than the smallest bacteria. All they have is a protein coat and a core of genetic material, either RNA or DNA.⁹

While there is no such thing as a cancer "virus" or "germ," several different viruses have been linked to certain types of human cancers, such as cancer of the cervix, Burket's lymphoma and Karposies sarcoma. It should be noted that the transfer of these particular viruses to humans has never been associated with eating meat.¹⁰

Worthy of a Nobel Prize?

After reviewing the scientific and medical facts, is Mrs. White's statement about cancerous germs really worthy of a Nobel prize?

1. The speculation that cancer was caused by germs, microbes, or parasites was not unique to Ellen White. A number of scientists in the 19th century proposed that cancer was caused by a germ.

2. Mrs. White taught that the cancer germ was transmitted to humans by eating meat but this is scientifically false.

3. While there does appear to be an association between cancer and certain viruses, the consensus of the scientific community is that cancer is caused by mutations of genes responsible for cell growth, not by a microbe or germ. John Hays, a molecular geneticist at Oregon State University, reports: "Overwhelming evidence shows a close connection between cancer and mutations of genes that control cell growth."¹¹

It is ludicrous to claim Ellen White's statement is worthy of a Nobel Prize. Her statement does not reflect an outstanding discovery, but rather a fear-based assertion originating from an outdated and flawed understanding of science. While her statement is interesting from the standpoint of understanding the irrational and delusional fears of 19th century health reformers, it is unworthy of further consideration.

Cancer and Solitary Vice

This was not the only time that Mrs. White made delusional and unfounded claims about the cause of cancer. She also said that cancer was caused by "solitary vice."

Nature will protest against the abuse she has suffered, and continues to suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgression of her laws, especially from the ages of thirty to forty-five, by numerous pains in the system, and various diseases, such as affection of the liver and lungs, neuralgia, rheumatism, affection of the spine, diseased kidneys, and cancerous humors.¹²

Interestingly, SDAs are not as anxious to publicize this tidbit of scientific wisdom about the cause of cancer! Shouldn't she be nominated for a Nobel Prize for this as well?