The former manager of an analysis laboratory, who had developed an alternative method of diagnosing Lyme disease, has had her sentence confirmed.
They had been described as “sorcerer’s apprentices” by the public prosecutor during the appeal hearing. A few weeks later, the opinion has not changed. The Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence retained at first instance against Viviane Schaller, former manager of a biological analysis laboratory in Strasbourg. The other person prosecuted in this case, a 67-year-old pharmacist, died four days before the delivery of the decision, of a heart attack.
Viviane Schaller, 68, was therefore sentenced to nine months suspended prison sentence and 228,000 euros to be reimbursed to Social Security for having used screening tests in a manner deemed abusive, and according to a method not approved in France.
“Scandalized”
She carried out diagnostic tests for Lyme disease in her laboratory, bypassing the established protocols and lowering the thresholds, in order to be able to benefit from a second test for her patients, covered by Health Insurance. . At first instance, she was ordered to reimburse the sum of 280,000 euros to the Primary Health Insurance Fund for “fraud” and to nine months suspended prison sentence.
The 67-year-old pharmacist had to pay the sum of 10,000 euros in damages to the Order of Pharmacists, for the manufacture and marketing without the approval of the health authorities of Tic Tox, an alternative treatment based on essential oils against Lyme disease, which did not have a marketing authorization. The verdict was rendered in November 2014. Viviane Schaller and Bernard Christophe then appealed against this decision.
Viviane Schaller’s lawyer, Me Julien Fouray, immediately announced the upcoming cassation appeal. Viviane Schaller’s trial, which sounds like a symbol of the struggle for recognition of the disease, is followed by patients and patient associations who actively support her. Some came to testify during the appeal trial.
“I am scandalized”, reacted to theAFP, Marie-Claude Perrin, president of the association “Lyme without borders”, which brings together thousands of patients and denounces the “denial” of Lyme disease by the public authorities. Referring to the “distress of the sick”, she stressed that this condemnation would only “harden the position of the associations, instead of opening up dialogue”.
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