Report: Prominent French doctor prescribes Parkinson's treatment for pope
Sun Sep 1, 8:47 AM ET
PARIS - The French researcher who co-discovered the AIDS ( news - web sites) virus has prescribed a treatment made from papaya extract to ease Pope John Paul ( news - web sites) II's symptoms of Parkinson's disease ( news - web sites), a news report said Sunday.
Dr. Luc Montagnier told Le Monde newspaper that he met with the pope in mid-June to talk about AIDS in the developing world and try to convince the Vatican ( news - web sites) to rethink its stance against condom use.
The doctor also used the meeting to propose an alternative treatment for the 82-year-old pope, whose symptoms include a hand tremor and slurred speech.
Montagnier believes that oxidative stress - created when cells convert oxygen into energy - contributes to certain medical conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
"My convictions are shared by a number of biologists," Le Monde quoted Montagnier as saying.
To fight the effects of oxidative stress, Montagnier prescribed an extract from fermented Asian papayas that contains antioxidants and stimulates the immune system, Le Monde said.
He also recommended a similar substance that is produced by a New York company that wasn't named in the Le Monde article.
Vatican officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the report. The Vatican has never confirmed the pope suffers from Parkinson's disease.
A spokesman at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where Montagnier has been named a professor, did not return a call seeking comment on Sunday.
Montagnier was director of a Paris laboratory that identified the virus that causes AIDS in 1983. In the United States, Dr. Robert Gallo helped to develop a blood test for the disease. The AIDS researchers, once rivals, now work together to raise money for research and trials of AIDS vaccines.
Gallo had been scheduled to see the pope along with Montagnier, Le Monde reported, but the U.S. doctor was unable to attend because he was having knee surgery.
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