To pay a last tribute to the biologist Gaston Naessens

Photo archive, Stéphan Dussault
Gaston Naessens poses in his laboratory in march 2005.

Arnaud Koenig-Soutière

Saturday, 24 February, 2018 23:29

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Saturday, 24 February, 2018 23:29

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Known to the four corners of the planet, the controversial biologist Gaston Naessens has received a final tribute on Saturday in Sherbrooke. He died at the age of 94 years.

The biologist of French origin, emigrated to Quebec in 1964, after his research had sparked an outcry in France.

Gaston Naessens then turned the cap to Rock Forest, in Estrie, in order to carry out its work, he hoped, in the quiet.

The crux of his career controversial is the drug 714X, that it has itself developed in the early 1960s.

Screenshot from the website of the institute for the protection of natural health

The drug is controversial, the 714X.

The biologist claimed that this serum allowed to treat people suffering from terminal cancer, and that it was even more effective when used in a preventive way.

The drug claims to strengthen the immune system, so that the body fights itself from degenerative disease.

However, the drug will never be approved in Canada, although it is distributed in more than 90 countries.

“It has not passed in his own country, and it is really a shame. He was extremely disappointed with it and it is beaten a lot. It doesn’t look great. He was trying to help people, ” said the former journalist, Guy Roy, who has worked at the Journal de Montréal from 1977 to 2002.

Photo archive

Gaston Naessens has made the headlines on the occasion of the first issue of the Journal de Montréal, on June 15, 1964. “We must protect Naessens rifle “, could be read. The biologist said he was the target of death threats because of his research. It will be protected by three armed guards for several months. Years later, Mr. Naessens claimed to have the “certainty” that these threats were the work ” of the pharmaceutical industry “.

Controversy

The controversy, however, has not left despite his move across the pond.

His claims related to 714X led him to be arrested at his home of Sherbrooke, in 1989, on live tv. He was accused of raising false hopes in patients and practice illegally the medicine. Criminal charges that have not been followed up.

“I don’t want to beat me and be the subject of controversy. I just want to try to help “, had entrusted the biologist Journal, 25 years after this episode.

The fight of a lifetime

Gaston Naessens is to be fought all his life to register the 714X in Canada, but in vain. Although its product is part of the special access Program of Health Canada for nearly 30 years, its sale to the public has never been allowed.

His wife, Hyacinth L. Naessens, herself a biologist, intends to pursue the adventure she led with her late husband. “I’m going to continue, but I did not intend to make a fight. […] It’s going to be done in collaboration with the medicine, and not under the banner of controversy as Gaston Naessens has had to carry during the last 65 years of her life, ” she said to the newspaper La Tribune, a few days ago.