French discoverer of HIV virus Luc Montagnier dies at 89

PARIS (AP) — French researcher Luc Montagnier, who won a Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the HIV virus and more recently spread false claims about the coronavirus, has died at age 89. The city hall of Neuilly-sur-Seine said Montagnier died on Tuesday at the American Hospital in the western suburb of Paris. A virologist, he led the team that in 1983 identified the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. He started expressing views devoid of a scientific basis at the end of the 2000s, leading much of the international scientific community to shun him. As the COVID-19 spread across the globe, Montagnier was among those behind some of the misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus.