Jacques Benveniste
May 10, 2010.
A reader sent me excerpts from a program where the Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier praises my late friend Jacques Benveniste.
Professor Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize in Medicine, 2007, in Lugano
He doesn't hold back and doesn't hesitate to declare that Jacques was a brilliant pioneer, ahead of his time, and his conviction that one day his views would be recognized as correct.
I remember the time when the general director of INSERM, Lazare, removed from Jacques his 200 square meters of facilities at INSERM 200 in Clamart, which led him to reestablish himself in the Algeco barracks in the courtyard! A complete disgrace.
Many times I told Jacques, "give up, you'll end up losing your life!" But he clung on, clung on, until his last breath, until he lost his life, with a broken heart.
My career had similar aspects, and I owe my life to the fact that it was only a continuous series of abandonments: MHD in 1972 (abandoning the installation I had brought in 1967, which had made the lab internationally leading), computer science in 1983 (I was deputy head of the computer service at the University of Provence), teaching at the faculty of letters and mathematics (sphere inversion, Pour la Science 1979), a comeback in MHD (1975-1986), abandoning BD publishing with a publisher in 1990, a quick abandonment in the 2000s in Egyptology. Currently, almost abandonment or serious suspension in astrophysics, cosmology and mathematical physics, due to lack of positive feedback (1985-2008).
Currently, a rebound with Savoir sans Frontières and the reedition of books and BDs. Activities bordering on abandonment in MHD and UFO topics. Below is the photo of the MHD bench being assembled in Rochefort (status in May 2010):
This is in the style of Jacques' Algeco, in the courtyard of INSERM, the difference being that it's not me who is handling it, but a courageous 40-year-old technician. Unlike Bernard Palissy, I won't burn my furniture.
The leading French MHD, the "out of equilibrium" MHD, the "bitemperature plasmas" which allow us to be among the top in international conferences (Vilnius 2008, Bremen 2009), here it is!
It would be funny if it weren't so utterly sad.
The audio file of the Montagnier interview, May 2010.
There is no greater deafness than that of one who does not want to understand.
Jacques Benveniste.
I confess that it has been a long time since I wanted to be able to speak in these columns about my friend Jacques. But, not being a biologist, I could hardly comment on his approach and his work, which I have known for a long time. It all goes back to about ten years ago. At that time, Benveniste was intrigued by experiments done in "high dilution". He has a solid competence as an immunologist, internationally renowned. The research in question concerned the immunological reaction of human blood to bee venom. Although not an expert in the field, I remember that the presence of this venom causes in lymphocytes a "degranulation" phenomenon, in cells called "basophils", which are involved in the mechanisms of the immunological reaction, a phenomenon that can be highlighted using a dye. The intensity of this degranulation could therefore be measured by counting, during a microscopic examination of samples. So, the operating procedure: human blood samples are exposed to given doses of bee venom. The degranulation occurs and the intensity of this immunological reaction is then evaluated through a count performed by laboratory technicians, their eyes fixed on the microscope's eyepiece.
At first, the immunological response decreases as the doses of venom are reduced.
But, beyond a certain dilution, the phenomenon does not disappear, as one would expect.
"Worse still," this degranulation phenomenon remains detectable, perfectly measurable, for dilutions such that no molecule of venom should remain in the test tube. From the point of view of classical chemistry, there is therefore a complete contradiction. "Normally," the effect should disappear along with the "effector". If the latter is no longer present, what causes this residual degranulation? The press then used the term "memory of water". It should be noted that this expression originated in the press and not from Jacques Benveniste himself. An article was sent to the English magazine Nature, world-famous. It was analyzed by an anonymous expert and, as it seems, the experimental protocol had been carried out "according to the rules of the art," taking into account the usual standards in biology, so the acceptance of the paper was communicated to the authors. However, Maddox, editor-in-chief, discovered the affair and became very upset. As it seemed to him "impossible" that such a result was not due to an "experimental error," he immediately asked Benveniste to withdraw his article himself, otherwise he could expect the worst, a full-scale counterattack in the press. Benveniste refused and the paper was published, causing a scandal. Various magazines then attacked this work (in the article Benveniste only reported the facts observed, without proposing an interpretation). The magazine Science et Vie in France took up the fight against this new "false science." In its columns, the journalists wrote, "how can you expect a molecule as simple as water to have a memory?" Etc. At the same time, Benveniste was reproached for having entrusted the counting of the degranulation of the "basophils" to his collaborators, which could lead to a "purely human" measurement error. Now, and that's why I present this dossier, these experiments have just been repeated by the biologist Marthe Ennis, from Queen's University in Belfast. Far from being a "fan" of the famous "Ben," this woman had instead wanted to redo these experiments with an outlook of the greatest skepticism. But, a new fact, she could now use a counting system free of any human intervention, which Jacques had never been able to have. And, surprise, her results confirm those obtained twelve years earlier by the French researcher. The "Guardian" dedicated an article to this matter in its issue of March 15, 2001, this work being set to be published, in May (which means that the communication was examined by a "referee" and accepted) in a scientific publication in good and due form in the "Inflammation Research Journal."
In France, the Quotidien du Médecin published a one-page article, written by Vincent Bargouin, in issue 6900 of April 18, 2001. We will simply quote a sentence from the beginning of the article
In the 1990s, not everyone was satisfied with
the excommunication
of Jacques Benveniste and, with him, of any notion related to the "memory of water". Some intransigents...