TWO Nobel prizewinners are being sued for libel by Jacques Benveniste, the
controversial French scientist whose research on the 鈥渕emory of water鈥�, first
published in 1988, appeared to provide a scientific basis for homeopathic
medicine.
Benveniste refuses to name the individuals he is suing. However, New
快猫短视频 has learnt that his targets include Georges Charpak and
Fran莽ois Jacob. Charpak won the physics Nobel in 1992 for his work on
particle detectors at CERN, the European centre for particle physics near
Geneva. Jacob, who works at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, received the 1965
prize in medicine for his molecular genetics studies. The third defendant is
Claude Hennion, a physicist at the School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry in
Paris.
All three researchers made comments presenting Benveniste in an unfavourable
light in a series of articles published by the French newspaper Le
Mondein January. Benveniste was angered by the articles, and is determined
to refute any suggestion that he has been dishonest. 鈥淚f you say I am a poor
scientist, I have no reason to sue,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f you declare I am a fraud, I am
going to sue.鈥�
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The lawsuit 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 frighten me鈥�, says Hennion, 鈥渂ut it will make me lose a
lot of time鈥�. Charpak and Jacob refused to comment when approached by New
快猫短视频.
In 1988, Benveniste claimed that water retains a 鈥渕emory鈥� of substances
dissolved in it, even after a solution is so diluted that not a single molecule
of the substance remains. This concept underlies the practice of homeopathy, in
which 鈥渁ctivated鈥� water is supposed to cure disease. Benveniste鈥檚 research,
published in Nature (vol 333, p 816), described immune responses
mounted by human cells to repeatedly diluted solutions of allergens.
His work became embroiled in controversy, especially after Nature鈥檚
editor, John Maddox, visited Benveniste鈥檚 laboratory with the conjurer and
investigator of the paranormal James Randi and Walter Stewart, a researcher at
the National Institutes of Health near Washington DC who has investigated
several contested experiments. After watching the work repeated, Maddox and his
colleagues dismissed Benveniste鈥檚 conclusions as a 鈥渄elusion鈥�. They stated that
his claims were 鈥渂ased chiefly on an extensive series of experiments which are
statistically ill-controlled.
Benveniste鈥檚 immunopharmacology laboratory has since been shut down by
INSERM, the French medical research agency. But he has continued his work as the
director of the privately funded Digital Biology Laboratory, based on the same
campus in Clamart, south of Paris. In his latest experiments, Benveniste claims
to have transmitted water 鈥渕emory鈥� over the Internet via e-mail.