Virologist Luc Montagnier, discoverer of HIV, dies

Luc Montagnier, Nobel laureate in Medicine for the discovery of HIV, the virus that triggers AIDS, died on Tuesday at the age of 89 in a hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, the city’s mayor, Jean -Christophe Fromantin.

The French researcher, who later became a , was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008 for having identified the AIDS virus in 1983 together with his colleagues Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Jean-Claude Chermann.

The biologist will remain associated in history with the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which triggers AIDS.

However, his aura has been tarnished in recent years after several statements that sparked enormous controversy and led him to be rejected by his colleagues.

Since 2017 he has made and in the last two years he has reappeared making claims about the coronavirus, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, which were refuted by the scientific community. In addition, he defended homeopathy, a very popular pseudoscience in the world.

His statements about anticovid vaccines made him win the sympathy of the anti-vaccine movements.