Luc Montagnier Died: What Was His Cause Of Death?

French was 89 years old and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008. Scientist was the target of complaints from colleagues in the profession for conspiracy theories and said that the coronavirus was made in the laboratory.

Luc Montagnier, the scientist who discovered the AIDS virus, died on Tuesday in a hospital on the outskirts of Paris. The Frenchman was 89 years old and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008.

His death was in the American Hospital of Neuilly-sur-Seine, next to Paris, says the newspaper Libération.

In the last years of his life, he was the target of complaints from colleagues for conspiracy theories, especially related to Covid-19.

The cause of death of Luc Montagnier has not come out yet, but considering his age, it is suspected to be old age-related causes.

Montagnier and Françoise Barre-Sinoussi shared the Nobel Prize in 2008 for their work at the Institut Pasteur in Paris in isolating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). His achievement has accelerated the path to testing the disease and antiretroviral drugs that keep the pathogen in check.

AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) first came to public attention in 1981, when US doctors noticed an unusual cluster of deaths among young gay men in California and New York.

Montagnier had a rivalry with American scientist Robert Gallo over his groundbreaking work on HIV identification in the virology department he created in Paris in 1972. Both are credited with discovering that HIV causes AIDS, and their claims took several years. to a legal and even diplomatic dispute between France and the United States.

The scientist’s work began in January 1983, when tissue samples arrived at the Pasteur Institute from a patient with a disease that mysteriously destroyed the immune system. He later recalled the “feeling of isolation” as the team struggled to make the vital connection.

“The results we had were very good, but they weren’t accepted by the rest of the scientific community for at least another year, until Robert Gallo confirmed our results in the US,” he said.

The Nobel jury did not mention Gallo in their citation.

In 1986, Montagnier shared the Lasker Prize—the American equivalent of the Nobel—with Gallo and Myron Essex.

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In 2011, to mark 30 years since the emergence of AIDS, Montagnier warned of the rising costs of treating the 33 million people then afflicted with HIV.

“Treatment cuts transmission, that’s clear, but it doesn’t eradicate it, and we can’t treat all the millions of people,” he told AFP.

Biography

Montagnier was born on August 8, 1932 in Chabris, in the Indre region of central France. After heading Pasteur’s AIDS department from 1991 to 1997, and after teaching at Queens College in New York, Montagnier gradually strayed into the scientific fringes and became a controversial figure.

He has repeatedly suggested that autism is caused by infection and has set up much-criticized experiments to prove it, claiming that antibiotics could cure the disease. He surprised many of his colleagues when he spoke of water’s supposed ability to retain a memory of substances. And he believed that anyone with a good immune system could fight HIV with the right diet.

Montagnier supported theories that DNA left an electromagnetic trace in the water that could be used to diagnose AIDS and Lyme disease. He also defended the therapeutic qualities of fermented papaya for Parkinson’s disease.

He has repeatedly taken positions against vaccines, receiving a stinging rebuke in 2017 from 106 members of the Academies of Science and Medicine.

During the Covid pandemic, he stood out again, stating that the coronavirus was made in the laboratory and that vaccines were responsible for the appearance of variants. These theories, rejected by virologists and epidemiologists, made him even more of an outcast among his peers, but a hero to French anti-vaxxers.

 

Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.

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