French scientist Luc Montagnier, who gained the Nobel prize for medication for his co-discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS, has died aged 89, the mayor of the Paris suburb the place he was hospitalised advised AFP on Thursday.
Montagnier died on Tuesday within the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine northwest of the centre of Paris, its mayor Jean-Christophe Fromantin mentioned, confirming studies within the Francesoir and Liberation newspapers.
Fromantin mentioned he was in possession of the loss of life certificates.
Montagnier shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with his colleague Francoise Barre-Sinoussi for his or her “discovery of human immunodeficiency virus” (HIV), which causes AIDS.
But he was sidelined by the scientific neighborhood in later years as he took up more and more outlandish positions, notably in opposition to vaccines.
His pariah standing solely elevated in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic when he claimed the virus was laboratory-made and that vaccines have been chargeable for the looks of variants.
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Luc Montagnier: HIV discoverer who ended a pariah
French researcher Luc Montagnier, who has died at 89, shared the Nobel medication prize for his important early discoveries on AIDS, however was later dismissed by the scientific neighborhood for his more and more outlandish theories, notably on COVID-19.
Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi shared the Nobel in 2008 for his or her work on the Pasteur Institute in Paris in isolating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Their achievement sped the best way to HIV assessments and antiretroviral medicine that hold the lethal pathogen at bay.
Bitter rivalry
AIDS—acquired immune deficiency syndrome—first got here to public discover in 1981, when US docs famous an uncommon cluster of deaths amongst younger homosexual males in California and New York.
Montagnier had a bitter rivalry with US scientist Robert Gallo in his ground-breaking work in figuring out HIV on the virology division he created in Paris in 1972.
Both are co-credited with discovering that HIV causes AIDS, and their rival claims led for a number of years to a authorized and even diplomatic dispute between France and the United States.
Montagnier’s work began in January 1983, when tissue samples arrived on the Pasteur Institute from a affected person with a illness that mysteriously wrecked the immune system.
He later recalled the “sense of isolation” because the workforce battled to make this important connection.
“The outcomes we had have been superb however they weren’t accepted by the remainder of the scientific neighborhood for not less than one other 12 months, till Robert Gallo confirmed our leads to the US,” he mentioned.
The Nobel jury made no point out of Gallo in its quotation.
In 1986 Montagnier shared the Lasker Award—the US equal of the Nobel—with Gallo and Myron Essex.
In 2011, to mark 30 years for the reason that look of AIDS, Montagnier warned of the spiralling prices of treating the 33 million then stricken with HIV.
“Treatment cuts transmission, that is clear, however it does not eradicate it, and we will not deal with all of the thousands and thousands of individuals,” he advised AFP.
Controversial concepts
Montagnier was born on August 8, 1932 at Chabris within the Indre area of central France.
After heading Pasteur’s AIDS division from 1991 to 1997, after which educating at Queens College in New York, Montagnier regularly drifted to the scientific fringes, stirring controversy after controversy.
He repeatedly steered that autism is brought on by an infection and arrange much-criticised experiments to show it, claiming antibiotics might remedy the situation.
He surprised a lot of his friends when he talked of the purported potential of water to retain a reminiscence of drugs.
And he believed that anybody with immune system might combat off HIV with the best food regimen.
Montagnier supported theories that DNA left an electromagnetic hint in water that could possibly be used to diagnose AIDS and Lyme’s Disease, and championed the therapeutic qualities of fermented papaya for Parkinson’s Disease.
‘Slow scientific shipwreck’
He repeatedly took up positions in opposition to vaccines, incomes a stinging reprimand in 2017 from 106 members of the Academies of Sciences and Medicines.
The French day by day Le Figaro described his journey from main researcher to crank as a “sluggish scientific shipwreck”.
During the COVID pandemic he stood out once more, stating that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was laboratory-made and that vaccines have been chargeable for the looks of variants.
These theories, rejected by virologists and epidemiologists, made him much more right into a pariah amongst his friends, however a hero to French anti-vaxxers.
AIDS timeline: Four many years however nonetheless no silver bullet
© 2022 AFP
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France’s Nobel winner for co-discovery of HIV virus dies: mayor (2022, February 10)
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