In the week that doctors have described homeopathy as ‘nonsense on stilts’, a Nobel prize-winning scientist has made a discovery about the nature of water that suggests the therapy does have a scientific basis.
Professor Luc Montagnier, a French virologist who won the Nobel prize for discovering a link between HIV and AIDS, has shocked fellow Nobel prize-winners by telling them that water has a memory that continues even after many dilutions. The idea is one of the foundations of homeopathy, which maintains that the potency of a substance is increased with its dilution.
Montagnier has discovered that solutions containing the DNA of viruses and bacteria “could emit low frequency radio waves”. These waves influence molecules around them, and turn them into organised structures. These molecules in turn can emit waves. He has discovered that the waves remain in the water, even after it has been diluted many times.
Montagnier’s statement couldn’t happen at a worse time for doctors. Last week, the UK’s British Medical Association (BMA) – the trade union of doctors – passed a resolution to stop homeopathy being made available on the National Health Service. It also wants all homeopathic remedies to be placed in a special area marked ‘Placebos’ in health shops and pharmacies. The NHS currently spends around £4m a year on homeopathy, mainly by funding four homeopathic hospitals in the UK.
(Sources: Sunday Times, July 4, 2010; British Medical Association).