According to the Tours prosecutor’s office, the fasting courses offered by Eric Gandon consisted “not to absorb solid foods for one to several weeks without any medical follow -up being insured nor planned”.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
A 58 -year -old man presenting himself as “naturopath” and his son were indicted Thursday, January 13 after several deaths that occurred as a result of “water cures” they had organized, the Tours prosecutor’s office announced.
The prolonged fasting courses offered by Eric Gandon for “several hundred, even thousands of euros” consisted “in not absorbing solid foods for one to several weeks without any medical follow -up being insured or expected” , explains in a press release the public prosecutor of Tours, Grégoire Dulin.
During one of these internships, organized in a castle in Noyant-de-Touraine, Indre-et-Loire, a 44-year-old woman died on August 12, 2021, triggering the investigation. Despite the disappearance of his trainee, Eric Gandon had continued the in progress courses, leading the prefecture to take a few days later a ban on these cures and stays in the town.
Judicial information was quickly opened in Tours and identified four other victims, two of whom have died since. A complaint concerns a man in sixty years, died on July 18, 2020, a month after participating in an internship organized in Vendée while he suffered from terminal cancer.
Methods “recognized by no public institution”
Another is linked to death, on March 15, 2022, of a young woman who followed training organized by Eric Gandon the previous year while she suffered from liver cancer and was out of treatment , details the prosecutor. Two other complaints come from participants in the internship organized in the summer of 2021.
“Eric Gandon had continued the organization of fasting courses and the promotion of his methods, which did not appear recognized or endowed by any public institution or medical authority”, underlines the press release of the Tours prosecution.
Eric Gandon was put on Thursday under examination of the heads of “manslaughter”, “abuse of weakness”, “endangering the life of others” and “illegal exercise of the professions of doctor and pharmacist” for facts occurred from July 2020 to January 2023. It was imprisoned.
Her 25 -year -old son, who participated in the organization of internships and promoting his father’s methods through a YouTube channel, was indicted of “exercise chiefs illegal of doctor and pharmacist professions “. He was placed under judicial supervision with prohibition to exercise any activity related to fasting and naturopathy. The two indicted, which have no legal history, dispute all of the facts alleged against them, indicates the prosecution.