A 41-year-old man with testicular cancer died after taking advice from a naturopathic doctor for a cure. The latter is referred to court for “illegal practice of medicine”.
Criminal court, Paris © Cineberg
Juices instead of chemotherapy. Here is the recovery program sold by a Parisian naturopath to a man with testicular cancer. Unsurprisingly, this treatment had no success on the naturopath’s client who died of cancer in December 2018.
The practitioner was referred to the Paris Criminal Court for “illegal practice of medicine and usurpation of the quality of doctor“, we learned Monday from a judicial source, confirming information from the Parisian.
The victim’s widow denounced the facts in February 2019 to the Paris prosecutor’s office, which opened an investigation. Its hearing is set for September 10.
Read also: Cancer: what place should be given to alternative medicine?
A naturopath “specializing in cancer stem cells”
The victim, 41 years old at his death, had placed all his confidence in this naturopath, convinced that the purges and the fasts that he advised him would cure him of his testicular cancer, relates the Parisian.
The naturopath, who presents himself on a website as “biochemist” and “doctor of molecular medicine, specializing in brain cancer stem cell research“, offers courses and advice focusing in particular on raw food.
A “curable” cancer according to the family lawyer
The qualification of “manslaughter“was not retained because the investigations, carried out by the public health pole of the Paris court,”failed to demonstrate a definite causal link between the intervention of the person concerned and the death of the victim“, a source familiar with the matter told AFP.
“The causal link is in telling him not to go for treatment. By the time he found out about his cancer, if he didn’t meet this person, he was curable“, said Manuel Abitbol, the lawyer for the widow and the family of the deceased.
“He arrived at the hospital when he couldn’t do anything more, he had chemotherapy three months before he died“added Me Abitbol, recalling that the cure rate for testicular cancer is 97%.
Increasingly trendy extreme fasting courses
In 2020, 38% of reports to the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes) were related to the field of health and well-being. New trends include extreme fasting or raw food eating, a practice of consuming only raw foods.
In 2018, a study published in the journal JAMA Oncology revealed that cancer patients who chose to turn exclusively to alternative therapies (diet, massage, acupuncture, naturopathy, homeopathy, etc.) had twice the risk of dying. than other patients.
