DOCTORS have slammed crowdfunding sites like JustGiving which let patients fundraise for “quack” cancer treatments.

They called for the sites - which profit from fees taken from donations - to vet campaigns for potentially harmful experimental treatments in the same way they ban fundraisers for violence and terrorism.

Exeter University professor Edzard Ernst said: "Crowdfunding for a terror attack is out of the question.

Crowdfunding for cancer quackery is not any better and must be stopped.”

Researchers said crowdfunding has created an easy way "for cranks, charlatans, and conmen” to "prey on the vulnerable”.

More than £8million has been raised in the UK since 2012 on sites like JustGiving and GoFundMe for people to have cancer treatment, according to a study by science charity the Good Thinking Society.

Money raised included hundreds of thousands for treatment at the controversial Burzynski clinic in Texas, which has been sanctioned by US authorities for misleading clients.

Appeals also included requests for cash for treatment including coffee enemas, juice drink diets and vitamin drips, which could fail to help cancer patients or even harm them.

The number of cancer treatment crowdfunders launched on JustGiving alone jumped seven-fold to 2,300 between 2015 and 2016.

The site takes a 5 per cent fee on all donations.

More than £5million was raised for cancer treatments on crowdfunding site GoFundMe between 2013 and June 2018.

The site previously charged a 5 per cent fee but scrapped charges in January this year.

GoFundMe said it was piloting a system in the US of monitoring customers more closely to offer “tailored advice” to those fundraising for treatment.

But JustGiving said it didn’t have “the expertise to make a judgement” on cancer treatments.