HIV/AIDS denialism
oracknows | February 6, 2017I wasn't planning on revisiting this topic, but sometimes a blogger's gotta do what a blogger's gotta do. You'll see what I mean in a minute. But before you do, I'll just provide a bit of background. Last week, I came across one of those truly awful antivaccine studies that gets the old Insolence flowing, this time a mix of the Respectful and not-so-Respectful. I'm referring, of course, to a paper that I came across as I was spending some time delving into the deeper darker parts of antivaccine social media. It was a study by Antonietta Gatti and Stefano Montanari in the International Journal…
denialism | October 2, 2012Via Ed I see that Christopher Monckton is expanding his crankery from denying global warming, claiming to be and MP despite cease and desist letters from parliament asking him to stop, curing HIV, the flu, MS and the common cold to now engaging in Birtherism. It's pathetic when you've been pre-debunked by snopes, but there's no stopping a crank like Monckton.
This reminds me of all the fuss last month over Lewandowsky's study that basically demonstrated crank magnetism, that is, the tendency of those who believe in one kind of conspiratorial nonsense to believe all sorts of other…
denialism | May 25, 2012Today I read about two individuals who decided on political defections over perceived anti-science amongst their former political allies- one due to climate change, the other for anti-GMO. From the right, we have Michael Fumento, who in Salon describes his break with the right, spurred by Heartland's campaign comparing those who believe in climate change with the Unabomber, as well as a general atmosphere of conspiratorial crankery and incivility. And from the left, we have Stephen Sumpter of Latent Existence leaving the Greens over their support for the misguided anti-scientific campaign of…
denialism | January 9, 2012Via Ed
If you ever wondered what motivated this particular HIV/AIDS denialist this video makes it obvious. Duesberg comes out and blames homosexual promiscuity for AIDS rather than a virus. I think examples like this make it clearer that the ideology responsible for this denialism is plain just plain homophobia after all. This is, of course, appealing to right wing ideologues so where does Duesberg end up? On right wing radio with the American Family Association's Brian Fischer proposing the absurd "AIDS was invented for gays to steal grant-money" conspiracy theory. I think the…
denialism | January 6, 2012When Duesberg was recently given space in Scientific American I think the blogosphere was rightly chagrinned that they would give space to a crank whose crackpot ideas are thought to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But it seemed at the time he had been keeping his denialism on the down low, maybe appearing to have given up on his crank view that HIV does not cause AIDS. Not so anymore. He's back, and has secured publication of a paper denying HIV/AIDS in an Italian Journal.
The title, AIDS since 1984: No evidence for a new, viral epidemic - not even in Africa, seems…
denialism | May 24, 2010Luckily they don't make the mistake of actually debating denialists. The feature of last weeks issue, "Age of Denial" is a series of articles by skeptics and one laughable rebuttal, discussing the nature of denialism and tactics to use against it. They do quite a good job covering the basics, starting with Deborah MacKenzie and her article "Why Sensible People Reject the Truth":
Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics (see "How to be a denialist"). All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt…
denialism | May 26, 2009Seth Kalichman is a better man than I. Kalichman is a clinical psychologist, editor of the journal Aids and Behavior and director of the Southeast HIV/AIDS Research and Evaluation (SHARE) product, and he has devoted his life to the treatment and prevention of HIV. Despite a clear passion for reducing the harm done by HIV/AIDS, to research this book he actually met, and interviewed, prominent HIV/AIDS denialists. I confess I simply lack the temperament to have done this. To this day, when I read about HIV/AIDS denialists, and the the 330,000 people who have died as a result of HIV/AIDS…
denialism | May 15, 2009
Seth Kalichman has written a book on HIV AIDS denial and Nature has a book review that's got me excited to get my copy. From the review:
Inadequate health policies in South Africa have reportedly led to some 330,000 unnecessary AIDS deaths and a spike in infant mortality, according to estimates by South African and US researchers. This carnage exceeds the death toll in Darfur, yet it has received far less attention. Seth Kalichman, a US clinical psychologist, shows in Denying AIDS how words can kill. His marvellous book should be read alongside Nicoli Nattrass's Mortal Combat, covering…
denialism | May 1, 2009In order to help spread the word about a dangerous altie quack and HIV/AIDS denier who is responsible for probably hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths from AIDS in Africa, I'm reproducing The Doctor Will Sue You Now, here on denialism blog.
The chapter, removed from Ben Goldacre's new book Bad Science due to libel litigation from the quack, Matthias Rath, in response to Goldacre's description of his activities in Africa and around the world. Another profile of a crank, this one goes a long way to show the extent to which denialism can damage a country and even cost thousands of lives…
sb admin | November 26, 2008As a physician, few things frustrate and sadden me as much as preventable deaths. I see it all the time---the guy who kept putting off his colonoscopy and was later diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, the woman who put off coming to the doctor with her breast lump until it broke through her skin, the heart patient who couldn't stop smoking. They all haunt me. But what if the ghosts were numbered in the hundreds of thousands rather than dozens?
That's what it must be like to be Thabo Mbeki, that is if he has a conscience. It may (or may not) be bad "framing" to call someone a "…
sb admin | May 9, 2008HT erv.
This is truly annoying because it is so patently wrong. It's wrong in lots of different ways, but I'll help point out some of the major flaws. What happens when journalist becomes the story, rather than reports it?
You see, there is this journalist, Celia Farber, who apparently has been following the HIV denialists since the beginning. From reading this interview with her in Discover Magazine, it would seem that she is suffering from some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Not only that, but the journalist interviewing her shows a complete lack of suspicion, and seems to be one of those…
sb admin | April 26, 2008Apparently, Gary is now a documentary filmmaker, and officially an HIV Denialist. What a pity. So many people like him. It's a shame he has to go from being wrong to being wrong and dangerous.
Check out this beauty from his website (edited for space):
Documentary filmmaker (sic) and health expert Gary Null (sic-er), Ph.D.(sic trifecta!), features never before seen footage from around the world, especially in Africa, in his new film "AIDS, Inc.". This is the first film on AIDS to bring together the most compelling arguments of dissident scientists, physicians and public health advocates.…
sb admin | April 1, 2008This entry needed migrating from the old blog. Thank you for your indulgence. --PalMDJPANDS, the mouthpiece of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, is a well-known organ or quackery, so it seemed like a good idea to see what they've been up to lately. It's not good. The most recent issue publishes a screed on HIV denial that is so blindingly stupid, I developed a cluster headache on reading it. Now that I've recovered, let's risk a closer look.
The Author
Henry Bauer is a chemist, or at least I think so. He doesn't have a CV on his website. He says that he is the editor…
sb admin | March 31, 2008The Lancet (Vol 371:9615, March 8, 2008 p. 784) notes that the government of Malawi is working on legislation to prevent traditional and religious healers from deceiving people about AIDS. According to Mary Shaba, a Malawi health official, "when it [the proposed legislation] passes into law, all traditional healers claiming to cure AIDS will be dealt with.... The Act will regulate and protect people from healers who prescribe sex with albinos, the disabled or virgins as a cure for HIV and AIDS."
According to the WHO, the HIV rate of about 14% in Malawi has helped reduce life-expectancy to…
denialism | December 20, 2007While I can't say for sure the new guy will be any better on HIV/AIDS denialism, it's hard to image he'd be worse than South African President Thabo Mbeki, who just lost power.
The new guy sounds like a nutbag, but maybe we can see this issue, which negatively affects the lives of millions of South Africans, improve under new leadership. The LA Times coverage suggests Zuma will be more assertive on AIDS, but at the same time, there are serious criminal allegations against him and some really disgusting behaviors and actions which diminish enthusiasm.
Time will tell.
denialism | December 3, 2007If anyone has been deluded into thinking HIV/AIDS denialism isn't dangerous or deadly, all one has to do is look at the fruits of their labor on the AIDS myth exposed message boards. Their latest monstrosity is to convince an HIV positive mother to refuse medical care and testing for her and her child. Momma2girls82 writes on their message board about becoming a denialist and asking for help from the denialist community:
So I've always been one to go 'against the grain'. I firmly believe that one should question everything they are told 'just is' and determine their own beliefs based on…
denialism | December 1, 2007Today is World AIDS day, and it's important to take a minute to discuss HIV and AIDS since this blog addresses HIV/AIDS denialism.
While the the UN made a mistake overestimating world HIV/AIDS statistics (it is good news and not for the reasons cranks like) Estimates of new HIV transmission in the US are rising. This is bad news. At the same time you have HIV/AIDS denialists still persisting in spreading their nonsense, cranks like Michael Fumento spreading the misinformation that heterosexual transmission of HIV is a "myth", and that the figures for Africa are a conspiracy by UNAIDS and…
denialism | October 10, 2007Greta Christina has sent me this link to her wonderful essay discussing the short memory required for HIV/AIDS denialism.
It is really a fantastic essay, personal and well-researched, and it covers a very important point. A lot of the anti-science attitudes we see are from people have no memory of what things were like before some medical intervention like vaccines, antibiotics, or in this case HAART. It's easy to think there's no problem with avoiding vaccination, or denying germ theory once the problem of these diseases are so well-controlled that there doesn't seem to be a tangible…
denialism | September 26, 2007This is seriously disturbing. Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, who is head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique, is telling people that condoms are laced with HIV and HAART therapy is designed to finish you off. This is in a country with double-digit HIV infection rates.
Archbishop Chimoio told our reporter that abstention, not condoms, was the best way to fight HIV/Aids.
"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries.
"They want to finish with the African people. This…
denialism | September 17, 2007I knew eventually some crank would find John Ioaniddis' work and manage to misrepresent it against science, well, the first to bat are the HIV/AIDS cranks. Fresh off this bizarre declaration from Harvey Bialey that he'd won the war against HIV science and is now going home, they're back on the horse and using Ioannidis to hint all science is bunk (via selective bolding, wink wink, nudge nudge).
I've written previously about the importance of understanding Ioannidis' work, it emphasizes the critical role of replication in biological science, not that biological science doesn't work.
In fact,…