Back on topic: When I looked into the "research" cited on the Church's website to back up their claims for the Purif, I found that it was bogus as hell. That doesn't necessarily discount the possibility that one could receive some kind of benefit from the program, because it has not been properly tested that I know of. No one has died from a Purif that I know of. Running, sweating and taking vitamins under supervision, with a doctor's permission is generally not harmful. The doctors who give permission to do the program run the risk of malpractice suits if a person is harmed by it. I know of no such cases so far. Does anyone?

The Purification Rundown as practiced in the CoS itself? Don't know if people ever died from that.

NarCONon is another question. Yes, people did die or suffered serious and lasting health damage from the program. Running, sweating and taking vitamins under the supervision of a doctor is a bit of an understatement for what happens in those centers.

5-6 hours a day in a sauna and massive vitamin overdoses is a more realistic description. People do die from that. Specially when they are not allowed to take their prescription medication against conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, epilepsy or even insulin for diabetes and suffer the physical stress from withdrawal.
Any doctor who gives permission for this should be sued for malpractice. The medical supervision in the Narconon centers is, in reality, virtually non-existing.

No one has died from a Purif that I know of. Running, sweating and taking vitamins under supervision, with a doctor's permission is generally not harmful. The doctors who give permission to do the program run the risk of malpractice suits if a person is harmed by it. I know of no such cases so far. Does anyone?

“By the end of the sauna, you feel like a fresh, newborn baby,” testifies Marc Murphy, the brooding young British singer-songwriter who appears to deliver a testimonial in a promotional video on the official Narconon website, narconon.org. Murphy insists that Narconon’s drug-free approach enabled him to kick a 12-year heroin addiction, compounded by a methadone and Valium habit that he acquired during dozens of previous detox attempts. “It was the easiest withdrawal that I’ve ever done,” the “student” says about his stint at a Narconon rehab outside London. “It saved my life.”

But lives have also been lost. Since Narconon's inception some 40 years ago, dozens of criminal and civil cases have been filed against its rehabs by former patients who claim to have been injured or abused, and by the relatives of people who have allegedly died as a result of bizarre and dangerous practices. “When I was at Narconon, people were taken away in ambulances and had to spend days in the hospital,” said David Love, a client at Narconon Trois-Rivieres—near Montreal—from December 2008 to May 2009, who was interviewed exclusively by The Fix. “People have died in the Quebec facility. The vitamin and sauna treatments are horrible. Patients regularly vomited and had diarrhea. Addicts with substance abuse problems have liver problems and high enzyme counts—they should in no way be taking massive amounts of vitamins like Niacin.”

At least six Narconon clients have died—most of them in their 20s—while undertaking the program, according to documents on narconon-exposed.org, a whistle-blower website run by Dr. David Touretzky, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and one of Scientology’s most dogged academic critics.