MONTAGNIER. Luc Montagnier died at the age of 89 on Tuesday February 8, 2022. Having received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for leading research on the discovery of AIDS, he was particularly controversial in recent months given his positions on the Covid-19 crisis were controversial.
Professor Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008, died on Tuesday February 8, 2022, as announced France Evening. Information revealed by Doctor Gérard Guillaume, collaborator of Luc Montagnier, and which was confirmed by the town hall of Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) with Check News. If, for the time being, his family has not officially communicated, Sudradio also mentioned the death of the biologist. This Thursday evening, February 10, the Élysée reacted in a press release to pay tribute to the professor and “welcomes his major contribution to the fight against AIDS, which remains one of the great medical and scientific challenges of the 21st century”. Likewise, Professor Didier Raoult also paid tribute to him, evoking “a man whose originality, independence and discoveries on RNA allowed the creation of the laboratory which isolated and identified the AIDS virus”. Luc Montagnier died at the age of 89 in Neuilly-sur-Seine hospital.
This earned him fame, the Nobel Prize, and the incredible hostility of his colleagues. The attention paid to his latest assumptions was disproportionate. (2/2)
— Didier Raoult (@raoult_didier) February 10, 2022
Faced with the lack of rapid confirmation of the death of Luc Montagnier from his entourage, no traditional media quickly dealt with the subject. Many messages have also poured in on social networks, mainly from personalities affiliated with movements denouncing the management of the coronavirus crisis in France and the vaccination strategy to criticize the absence of an article. Didier Maïsto, René Chiche or even the “anti-vax” lawyer Fabrice Di Vizio castigated a “media silence”, while the information was being verified. Fabrice Di Vizio also felt that “the absence of a tribute from Olivier Véran or Emmanuel Macron would be an unnamed scandal and would definitely taint this government with the seal of infamy”. For the time being, neither the Minister of Health nor the President of the Republic have spoken.
Discovery of HIV and Nobel Prize
If his end of life was marked by very critical speeches with regard to the Covid epidemic and vaccines, Luc Montagnier was a member of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) from 1960, at the age of 28. years, while integrating the Curie and Pasteur institutes. This specialist in virology rose through the ranks, received numerous distinctions for his work, became director of the viral oncology unit at the Pasteur Institute and participated in an important discovery in 1983: that of HIV. On May 20, 1983, the team from the Viral Oncology Unit at the Institut Pasteur, led by Professor Luc Montagnier, identified for the first time the virus responsible for AIDS.
A tipping point in his career. Luc Montagnier then became director of the “AIDS and retroviruses” department at the Pasteur Institute, but also a professor at New York University and took over the management of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention. The Grail was won in 2008 when, on October 6, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, for the discovery of HIV.
Many controversies on the Covid-19
Author of 350 scientific publications and at the origin of no less than 750 patents, his fall was as dizzying as his rise. Accused of charlatanism in the 2000s, he had supported theories without scientific foundations such as the “memory of water” or the treatment of AIDS by homeopathy, and that of autism using antibiotics. Crowned with a distinction prized by all scientists, Luc Montagnier used his notoriety to oppose the eleven compulsory vaccines in France. In 2017, 106 academicians denounced his remarks. I’m getting old, but my brain is intact. My activities keep me alive,” he confided to the World in 2018, as he finished battling a nosocomial illness. Some accuse him of having the “Nobel disease”: after receiving a Nobel Prize, it is the desire to work on subjects without having the required skills, or to develop pseudo-scientific theories ..
Luc Montagnier again made controversial remarks when the Covid-19 appeared. On April 16, 2020, he said on CNewsbased on a controversial study: “We have come to the conclusion that there has been manipulation on this virus. A part, I do not say the total. there is a model which is the classic virus, coming mainly from the bat, but to which sequences of HIV have been added on top. It is not natural, it is the work of a professional, of a molecular biologist, of watchmaking sequences. For what purpose? I don’t know (…) One of my hypotheses is that they wanted to make a vaccine against AIDS.” A theory invalidated by scientists who all mentioned an animal origin of the virus.
Biography of Luc Montagnier
Born in Chabris (Indre) on August 18, 1932, Professor Montagnier is the son of a chartered accountant and a housewife. In Poitiers, he studied science and medicine, and rubbed shoulders with Professor Pierre Gavaudan who introduced him to a new discipline: molecular biology. He then specialized in virology during his research at the Institut Curie in Paris and joined the Institut Pasteur where he directed the viral oncology unit from 1972 to 2000. In 1983, he headed a team (with in particular Jean-Claude Chermann and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi) which identifies the HIV virus responsible for AIDS. Following this discovery, he headed the brand new department of the Institut Pasteur: “AIDS and retroviruses”, from 1991 to 1997. He was then a professor at New York University. A member of the Academy of Sciences and Medicine, he took the helm of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, which he created in 1993. This was the consecration for Luc Montagnier on October 6, 2008: he received the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine alongside Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, for the discovery of HIV.