| Djamel Tahi
|
January, 2010
|
Speak out, Monsieur le Professeur Montagnier!
A few days ago, a video
clip was posted on the Internet, which produced the kind of buzz
that is shaking the world of AIDS research.
This clip shows a recent
interview with Professor Luc Montagnier in which he declares:
“We can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically
infected. Our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few
weeks.”
These remarks are likely to surprise you when you
discover they come from the man who obtained the 2008 Nobel Prize in
Medicine for his discovery, in 1983, of HIV, the so–called virus
that causes AIDS. Even more surprising – this is not Professor
Montagnier’s first such radical statement. In 1990 he declared,
on an American television program, that HIV was not the only cause of
the syndrome AIDS (he postulated the action of infectious
co–factors) and that HIV’s role might only be secondary in
the destruction of the immune system of infected people.
At that
time, this was equivalent to completely exonerating the virus. His
statement unleashed an outcry in the scientific community which
started to associate Luc Montagnier with Professor Peter Duesberg, a
famous American retrovirologist of the University of California at
Berkeley, and leader of a group of “dissident” scientists
who, even now, keep questioning any involvement of HIV in causing the
syndrome AIDS. In 1993 and 1998, in the context of a documentary film
about “dissidents”, the Pasteur Institute’s virologist
reiterated this statement, adding that people with a good immune
system were protected against HIV infection. So, he was already
saying the same thing as today!
But beyond the surprising nature
of the French virologist’s statements, these remarks should be
deciphered so that their (in)consistency gets evaluated. First of
all, the steadfast way Luc Montagnier has been, for nearly twenty
years, repeating such remarks, reveals that he never believed HIV
could actually be the main and unique cause of the syndrome AIDS.
Even though he has always condemned the Dissidents’ point of
view, every new remark he makes brings him a little closer to their
hypothesis and moves him away from the official thesis according to
which HIV = AIDS. However, Luc Montagnier refuses to be
likened to the Dissidents and remains one of the most fervent
defenders of the official research on AIDS. His, to say the least,
risky and acrobatic performance gives him a position that allows him
to swing over from one side to the other depending upon whether
progress or doubt is occurring in AIDS research. Such an attitude
does not characterize great scientific courage or a very honest
attitude towards the millions of people who have been diagnosed as
HIV positives and are living in the fear of the disease.
It is
very regrettable that Brent Leung, the young American film director
who recorded Professor Montagnier’s words, did not encourage him
to reveal what was behind such assertions. On what scientific studies
are they based? Have those studies been published anywhere? We want
to know if those people, whose “good” immune system has
been able to eliminate the virus, still had traces of the infection.
If so and if we believe that Professor Montagnier’s assertions
are right, there would therefore be millions of HIV–positive
people around the world, living in a state of perpetual anxiety of
developing AIDS even though they do not have the virus in their
bodies! A good many of them follow a treatment whose side effects are
extremely toxic and can be detrimental to their health. This
information is crucial, and the people who are concerned should be
immediately informed so that they are aware of the virus’
harmlessness and can stop their treatment as quickly as possible. But
what should then be the clinical and biological standards that could
allow the determination of whether an infection has actually been
neutralized and the virus suppressed? If, on the contrary, these
people are HIV–antibody–negative (which should be, to say
the least, very surprising), how is it possible to prove they’ve
been in contact with the virus if it has not left any trace of its
brief stay?
As we clearly see, this statement by Professor
Montagnier is far from being insignificant and casts a serious doubt
on many aspects of the AIDS research, such as the syndrome’s
pathogenesis and aetiology to start with.
NEXUS magazine, which
comments on this video clip in its January–February issue (Issue 66, pp
10–11, VIH: les contradictions du Pr Montagnier), contacted
Professor Montagnier in order to get some more details concerning his
statement. In his answer to the magazine, Luc Montagnier declared
that his words had been “taken out of context” and that
those people, he was actually referring to, had actually been only
transitively HIV–positive for a few months before turning
HIV–negative again. It would only have been a few rare cases
that he could observe during his research career at the Pasteur
Institute. When viewing the mentioned video clip, it appears clear
that these assertions are absolutely not “out of context”
and nothing suggests that the cases Professor Montagnier is referring
to are unusual. He even goes further in the rest of the interview. To
the question: “…If you take a poor African who’s been
infected and you build up his immune system… Is it possible for
them also to get rid of it (the virus)?” Luc Montagnier’s
answer is “I would think so”. These assertions, confided
with the utmost conviction, do not stop him from going back on his
opinions when asked for some details.
Quite obviously, Luc
Montagnier hasn’t got any scientific argument to support what he
says. Or maybe he cannot reveal his data! For, if he did, the HIV
discoverer would once and for all topple into to the Dissidents’
camp. For these, the French virologist’s remarks are a pure
delight, as they see (again) in him a weighty ally against a
scientific community that always reviled them. But, instead of
considering him as being one of theirs, a searcher who has always
been ready to change his mind, Dissidents should expose Professor
Montagnier’s attitude as well as his lack of conviction
regarding the role really played by “his” virus in the
syndrome. A virus, whose isolation and characterization, as
bio–physicist Eleni Papadopulos–Eleopulos revealed it,
remain very questionable. This has brought Eleni Papadopulos and
other dissidents to question HIV’s very existence. For their
part, leaders of mainstream AIDS research have got used to ignoring
the French virologist’s statements whenever they contradicted
the established dogma. In the past, their criticisms would limit
themselves to cliches, claiming that Luc Montagnier was responsible
for his own speech and claiming that they have better things to do in
fighting the plague than argue with Montagnier. However, there always
has been some kind of embarrassment regarding the former Pasteur
Institute’s researcher and his latest statement will only
increase their unease.
That is why, today, Professor
Montagnier’s remarks have lead to the urgent need for
clarification of his position regarding the causation of AIDS. This
is the least we have every right to expect from a Nobel Prize
laureate in Medicine.
Djamel Tahi
Film director and
journalist.
Translated from the French by Pol
Dubart.
Nobel Prize’s answer to NEXUS
Magazine
With a view of openness and
deontology,NEXUS Magazine contacted Professor Luc Montagnier in
order to obtain an answer to Djamel TAHI’s article “VIH:
les contradictions du Pr. Montagnier” and regarding his
statements recorded on the footage that can be seen on Rethinking
AIDS website. Here is the answer that NEXUS Magazine editorial office
received from Luc Montagnier, and which has been published in the
January–February 2010 issue (Issue 66, pp 10–11), following the
mentioned article:
“My statement—taken out of
its context in a film that glorifies the “Dissidents” and
posted on Internet by a website that is searching for polemical
debate—is based on observations I made while I was director of
the Centre of reference on AIDS virology at the Pasteur Institute: we
actually met several cases of persons being transitively
HIV–positive for a few months and then turning HIV–negative
again.
This is difficult to detect, keeping count of the furtive
nature of the infection, but, when applied to AIDS, it simply
reflects a general phenomenon that can be found in many viral
infections: under the effect of a good immune response, these will
disappear after a few weeks.
In the case of HIV, this explains
the enormous disparity of prevalence between the North (0,1% in our
countries) and the South (5 to 10% in Africa). In southern areas, for
a lot of reasons (such as co–infections or malnutrition), the
immune system of many Africans is weakened and allows chronic
infection to HIV.
These cases of people being transitively
HIV–positive do not minimize the dangerous nature of HIV, which
remains the key factor in the onset of AIDS, but they suggest that a
regression of the epidemic can be obtained in Africa by taking
general health measures.”