Loretta Josephine Marron, OAM (born 16 October 1951) is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Friends of Science in Medicine organization.

At her cancer support group, she was exposed to promotions for a range of alternative treatments, many of which urged her to reject conventional medicine and not to have surgery or chemotherapy.

Marron said she became horrified to see how charlatans were attempting to take advantage of her and fellow sufferers, offering treatments with no verifiable benefits, often while charging large fees, and this drove her to expose the worst practices of people who promote unproven, "alternative" approaches.

"[4] She studied a series of short courses at Bond University in the Faculty of Health Science and Medicine to improve her understanding of the issues, but she emphasizes that she is not a medical professional.

"[8] She pointed out that the enormous amount of money involved in supplementary, complementary and alternative medical treatments, estimated by The Sydney Morning Herald as $1.8 billion per annum in Australia, is an incentive to continue these practices regardless of the public welfare.

[11][12][13]: 6:00  In particular, she called for the chiropractic pediatric clinic run by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, which recorded 113 patients aged 13 and under, to be closed down, and to stop using government funds to pay for these practices.

[15] She further developed this persona of "the Jellybean Lady", including colourful clothing to play well on television, as a fun way to engage people's attention while being easily identifiable.

[5]: 10:00 Over this period, she became a frequent contributor to the media, including investigative journalism pieces to expose alternative therapists making false and misleading claims.

A high-profile investigation on A Current Affair involved a beauty therapist who claimed that she could cure cancer by injecting sufferers with a mixture of citric acid and sodium chlorite.

Marron's under-cover investigation was covered on national television, including showing the practitioner mixing up and injecting the mixture into Maria Worth, who was dying of breast cancer and paid $2000 for the "treatment".

[15] In 2011, Marron joined with a group of 34 prominent Australian doctors, medical researchers and scientists, to form the organization Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM).

Marron is concerned that instead of providing improved accountability, these changes may simply confer an appearance of respectability and professionalism which is not warranted: "Once they are regulated, that legitimises them, but it comes with a responsibility to consumers; they can't have it both ways," she says.

In 2011, she wrote to the Federal Health Minister outlining the seriousness of the problem, which she said "is a form of child abuse", calling for universities to stop teaching health-related courses which could not produce adequate evidence to support their claims.

"[4] She was more forthright in an interview with The Australian newspaper, saying she felt "ashamed that our universities, once deemed to be pillars of excellence and enlightenment, are letting the bean-counters who run them sell off their reputations for considerable profit by actively embracing subjects no better than witchcraft and voodoo".