Court bans man from working as a healer

Doctors’ board granted emergency injunction to stop quack therapies

Jean-Paul Lavoie, a self-taught healer, got slapped with a court order forbidding him from treating “human beings.”

On Wednesday, a Quebec Superior Court judge granted a request by the provincial doctors’ board for an emergency injunction to stop Lavoie from dispensing quack therapies.

Justice Alain Bolduc ordered Lavoie to stop treating clients at his Quebec City home clinic, at least until Aug. 26. On that day, the Collège des médecins du Québec will be back in court to ask for a permanent restriction on Lavoie, who does not have a medical degree or licence.

Lavoie uses a machine hooked up to a home computer to diagnose and treat all manner of “physical, mental and astral” ailments. Clients are strapped by their ankles and wrists to an electric biofeedback machine, which Lavoie claims can detect and fix 200 different types of health weaknesses, including cancer.

The court ordered Lavoie to stop pretending he has the authority to practise medicine, and/or behave in a way that implies he is a legitimate health professional.

Lavoie is not allowed to perform medical activities reserved for medical professionals and Collège members, Bolduc noted in a detailed list in his judgment.

Specifically, Lavoie is to refrain from evaluating and diagnosing health issues or suggesting prevention or maintenance treatments “in human beings.”

He must refrain from examinations, treatments, invasive therapies and prescriptions, Bolduc added. He is not allowed to monitor patients, and he must not follow pregnancies or accompany births.

Finally, Lavoie must post the court order so it’s clearly visible at his clinic in Quebec City.

Collège officials will be monitoring the clinic closely, spokeswoman Leslie Labranche said.

The Collège has attempted to stop Lavoie from practising medicine illegally since 2003, taking him to court three times. He was first found guilty in 2006 on three counts of posing as a doctor, and has since been fined nearly $100,000.