Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Editorials Christmas 2009: Years Like This

Secret remedies: 100 years on

BMJ 2009; 339 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b5432 (Published 15 December 2009) Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b5432

Rapid Response:

Oi vey, more "heresy" being purveyed...

Dear Sir,

I very much look forward to Dr Flegg, Dr Ernst and Dr Colquohouns'
scientific dissertations tearing Dr Montagnier's latest "heresy" apart.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/nobel-laureate-
gives-homeopathy-a-boost/story-e6frg8y6-1225887772305

"Montagnier told the conference last week that solutions containing
the DNA of pathogenic bacteria and viruses, including HIV, "could emit low
frequency radio waves" that induced surrounding water molecules to become
arranged into "nanostructures". These water molecules, he said, could also
emit radio waves.

He suggested water could retain such properties even after the
original solutions were massively diluted, to the point where the original
DNA had effectively vanished. In this way, he suggested, water could
retain the "memory" of substances with which it had been in contact -- and
doctors could use the emissions to detect disease.

To a lay person this may sound tenuous. For a scientist it is highly
provocative in its similarity to the principles said to underpin
homeopathy."

Definitely needs to be dragged off to the French version of the GMC
to be discreditted, doesn't he? After all, opinion will not do!

Wakley's heretic creation, the Lancet, in 1823, for just this sort of
discourse, will of course, be of no use to him now.

I'm sure some journalist/self proclaimed medical skeptic, looking to
make a name for himself, could institute the necessary steps to ensure
Montagnier's character deconstruction?

Hilary Butler.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

12 July 2010
Hilary Butler
freelance journalist
home 2121 New Zealand.