Singer Bernard Lachance, who was actively campaigning in conspiratorial circles claiming that AIDS and COVID-19 are inventions of “Big Pharma”, did indeed die of complications related to HIV, concludes the coroner’s report obtained through Press.
In the weeks leading up to his death, in May 2021, Mr. Lachance had asserted in several alternative media that if he were to die, it would be because he was assassinated by “Big Pharma”, who sought to ” silence ”. His conspiratorial and negationist theses on the subject of the disease had been widely relayed by headliners of the movement opposed to health measures, in particular Alexis Cossette-Trudel, the influencer and seller of natural products Amélie Paul, the host of the alternative media André Pitre, as well as by the former doctor Guylaine Lanctôt (who calls himself Diesse Ghis) and the “healer” Jean-Jacques Crèvecœur.
However, the coroner Pierre Bélisle, who analyzed the autopsy of the Laboratory of Forensic Sciences and Forensic Medicine of Quebec, concludes that “no trace of struggle or violence is observed” on his body: “Mr. Bernard Lachance died of bacterial sepsis related to HIV infection. This is a natural death, ”he says.
Everything indicates that, on the contrary, Bernard Lachance put himself at risk through his own convictions: “he relied on natural products and the advice of people who shared his convictions. ”
“Conspiracy theories”
He had stopped taking his triple therapy for several years, claiming that it is the drug itself that makes people with HIV sick. “He had adhered to conspiracy theories and spoke on the subject at conferences and on social networks. He was so convinced of his position that he had quarreled with several friends who did not share his point of view, ”notes the coroner.
According to his sisters Lise and Marie-Claude, he bought thousands of dollars in natural products to treat himself and he had started a purge shortly before his death with the drugs he had taken for years to fight to “purify” himself. against infection. A doctor friend who visited him in the days before his death found him “emaciated” and “dehydrated”. “He only had a short time to live if he didn’t get treatment. Mr. Lachance seemed to him to block the existence of AIDS, ”underlines the coroner’s investigation report.
Even when he was “suddenly seized with diarrhea and nosebleeds”, the singer refused to be taken to hospital.
SQ investigation
The report points out that police officers from the SQ of the MRC d’Autray interviewed several witnesses who gravitated around Mr. Lachance in the days preceding his death.
One of Mr. Lachance’s sisters, Marie-Claude, says she hopes their investigation and that of the coroner will lead to criminal charges “against the conspirators who led him to no longer eat and to purge natural products”, although she remains convinced that it will not happen.
“The coroner’s report clearly says he died of AIDS, but it might have been slower if he hadn’t done his purge of natural products. I do not want these people to be imprisoned, but at least that they stop doing what they are doing, ”she commented.
In this regard, Coroner Bélisle takes no position. “Even if some may deplore that Mr. Lachance has moved away from traditional medicine and be convinced that it could have prolonged his life, the fact remains that this choice was his. Articles 10 and 11 of the Civil Code are clear: no one can be subjected without their consent to treatment of any kind, ”he wrote.
“No one, parents or relatives, has ever questioned the intellectual capacities of Mr. Lachance to the point of resorting to legal means to force him to seek treatment with the means of medicine,” he adds. . This choice was made with full knowledge of the facts by Mr. Lachance and it is not for me as coroner to pass judgment on his decision, ”he adds.
Bernard Lachance first became known to the public in 2009 when he was interviewed by American host Oprah Winfrey for a series of concerts he managed to self-produce at the Chicago Theater, selling tickets on the street.