Belgian Acquitted of Drink-Driving Charges due to 'Auto-Brewery Syndrome'

A court in Bruges has acquitted a Belgian man accused of drunken driving because the defendant had a condition called auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), which is sometimes caused by intestinal problems, 7sur7 reports. 

The 40-year-old man, who had been invited to appear twice for drunken driving, called three doctors to prove that he had this extremely rare syndrome. 

The Belgian court recognised a "case of force majeure". 

"We are satisfied with this decision, but it is not yet final," commented his lawyer, Me Anse Gesquier. The prosecutor's office has thirty days to appeal.

Can a person with this disease continue to drive? 

"Despite the alcohol in his blood, we see a man who works perfectly. His reaction time is not reduced, as is the case with people who drink alcohol. We don't know much about this syndrome yet, but it seems to us that he is quite capable of driving a vehicle," concludes Me Gesquier. 

During the hearing, the prosecutor's office reportedly demanded that he avoid "any voluntary consumption of alcohol".

Known as "auto-fermentation" or "auto-brewery", it is a syndrome in which eating carbohydrate-rich foods (bread, potatoes, legumes, etc.) leads to endogenous ethanol production by yeast in the gastrointestinal tract. The man would have been one of about twenty people in the world officially affected by this pathology.

In 2019, the driver had already been fined and deprived of his driving licence. He was unaware of the existence of this syndrome, and although he claimed his innocence, the court did not convict him. In April 2022, he was tested at 0.91 mg per litre of exhaled air, then again a month later at 0.71 mg/l. It is worth reminding that in Belgium, the ceiling is 0.22 mg/l.