This article is praising a man who is very apt at selling lies. Not only is Kombucha (another bullshit health brand) ineffective in curing his mother's "so-called cancer" but even worse, causes serious side effects and occasional deaths which have been linked with drinking Kombucha.* Why would someone believe it is curing them of cancer if the mother who has sold this product was just as good as a snake oil salesman? I agree that the article has identified some faults of his in his industry, but praising him isn't doing any justice.
Whoa whoa let's slow down here. Kombucha is tasty (IMO) and the probiotics are great -- I enjoy kombucha and kefir regularly. But I'm not going to tell anyone it's magical or guaranteed to not cause them harm. There's simply not enough research either way. Correlation does not imply causation.
In April 1995, two women who had been drinking the tea daily for
2 months were hospitalized with severe acidosis -- an abnormal
increase of acid levels in body fluids. Both had high levels of
lactic acid upon hospitalization. One woman died of cardiac
arrest 2 days after admission
I think that it's more likely those two women had underlying health issues they were trying to cure with kombucha instead of getting proper treatment; I find it plausible that it can cause harm to some people with preexisting conditions we have not yet identified.
You can die from drinking too much water too, you know...
As a long-term resident of Japan, this confused the hell out of me. Over here "konbucha" is tea made from dried seaweed, bearing no resemblance to what's described in the article.
With that said, I found it hard to tell if the article's author took the guy seriously or was inviting the reader to conclude that he was a charlatan. It almost seemed like both, if that's possible.
*http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/com...