A naturopath for more than ten years, Éric Gandon organized fasting courses billed at several hundred, even several thousand euros. A 44-year-old woman died during one of these courses.
“Fasting to cure cancer”, “improve your eyesight with fasting”, are promises found on the YouTube channel of Éric Gandon, naturopath indicted on Thursday for counts of manslaughter, abuse of weakness, endangering the lives of others and illegal exercise of the professions of doctor and pharmacist. He was remanded in custody.
The facts with which he is charged, for which he faces up to three years in prison and which he disputes, took place between July 2020 and January 2023. The judicial investigation was opened in August 2021 after the death of a 44-year-old woman during a “water cure” course organized by Éric Gandon in Touraine.
These courses provide for a prolonged fast “consisting of not absorbing solid food for one to several weeks”, without “any medical follow-up” assured, according to the public prosecutor of Tours, Grégoire Dulin.
More than ten years of activity
On his YouTube channel, Éric Gandon says “accompaniment to fasting since 2012”. “I haven’t always been a naturopath, but I’ve always been passionate about food,” he says in a video published in 2017. Indeed, his journey has been rather classic for a large part of his life. . After a BTS in horticulture and management-oriented studies, according to his online CV, the now 58-year-old man was responsible for various stores, before moving up in rank in large groups.
Also on his YouTube channel, he says he discovered “alternative methods” in contact with another naturopath in 2004, when he suffered from allergies, migraines, foot fungus, “permanent” bad breath and sleep problems.
Over the course of meetings and readings, he “discovered” fasting, when his health “radically improved”.
In 2011, he decided to become a naturopath himself and followed a training in this direction. There is no national diploma in naturopathy, recalls the Ministry of Health on his sitesince “alternative medicine”, of which it is a part, “has not been the subject of scientific or clinical studies showing their modes of action, their effects, their effectiveness, as well as their non-dangerousness”.
72,000 subscribers on YouTube
On his YouTube channel, the first video of which dates from 2011, he highlights the alleged benefits of fasting, gives advice on how to carry it out and shows testimonials from people who claim to have recovered from diseases such as cancer of the stomach. prostate thanks to these cures.
The risks of fasting
Even when fasting is supervised by a doctor, “to date there are no sufficiently numerous and rigorous scientific studies to conclude as to its therapeutic or preventive effectiveness”, recalls the Ministry of Health in a plug dedicated. However, it can cause heart rhythm disorders “which in some cases can lead to death”.
This channel that the son of the 25-year-old naturopath helps him maintain is currently followed by 72,000 people. His son was also indicted on charges of illegal exercise of the professions of doctor and pharmacist. He also disputes all of the facts with which he is accused, according to the prosecution, and like his father, he has no criminal record.
Deaths following internships
The complaints against Éric Gandon mainly concern the internships he organized. These prolonged fasting courses were “billed for several hundred or even thousands of euros, without covering accommodation costs” with around twenty participants, “over variable durations of 1 to 6 weeks”, according to the press release from the prosecutor. of the Republic of Tours.
“The stays were punctuated with time for discussion and various occupations related to alternative medicine and esotericism offered by external speakers” and “certain services gave rise to the perception of an additional commission” by Eric Gandon, adds the floor.
One of the complaints follows the death of a man in his 60s in July 2020, after attending a course the previous month when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Another concerns the death of a young woman in March 2022. She suffered from liver cancer, was out of treatment and followed Eric Gandon’s training and internship between May and September 2021.
The other two complaints concern people who are still alive, reports the prosecution: “a participant in the course organized in the summer of 2021” who “considered her health endangered” by this experience and a woman suffering from a thyroid disease ” claiming to be particularly vulnerable and weakened during the internship “this summer 2021, during which a participant died.
These deaths and the decrees of the prefecture prohibiting these stays did not prevent Éric Gandon from continuing to organize fasting courses and the promotion of his methods, according to the elements collected during the judicial investigation.
Miviludes warns about fasting courses
In his activity report 2021the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Aberrations (Miviludes), reported a “diversification of practices and offers of fasting”.
“Vulnerable people, sometimes intolerant to the side effects of certain treatments or suffering from incurable pathologies, can be tempted by these fasts presented as ‘miraculous'”, she underlined.
Miviludes particularly pointed to fasting courses, which expose participants to “serious personal harm”. She named, for example, the costs induced by the stays which “can very quickly become exorbitant”, “dietary deficiencies” which can “dangerously weaken the participants, making them more easily manipulated and exploitable” and “the speeches advocating an unproven alternative medicine” .
The latter present the risk of diverting participants from conventional medicine and their medical treatments, “causing serious consequences for their health and exposing them to a loss of opportunity”.
