The French virologist Luc Montagnier was a protagonist in one of the most acrimonious scientific disputes of the late 20th century. The disagreement, with the American scientist Robert Gallo, over who had discovered HIV and its role in causing Aids, was resolved only after the intervention of the US and French presidents, Ronald Reagan and Jacques Chirac. In 2008 Montagnier and his colleague Françoise Barré-Sinoussi were jointly awarded half of the Nobel prize for medicine. The rest of the prize went to Harald zur Hausen, for his unrelated discovery that human papillomaviruses cause cervical and other cancers.
In later life Montagnier, who has died aged 89, alienated his own supporters after he promoted a range of fringe theories. He was a champion of the anti-vax movement, arguing that diseases including HIV could be cured by diet. When the Covid pandemic began, he claimed that Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, had originated in a lab experiment to combine coronavirus and HIV. He told viewers on French TV that vaccination was an “enormous mistake” that would promote the spread of new variants.
