A lot of strange stuff can fly in under the claim that you are ‘simply starting a debate’. You may remember the Aids denialist documentary House of Numbers from three weeks ago. Since then, it has had a fabulous run. The organisers of the London Raindance Film Festival explained that they were proud to show it, and a senior programmer appeared on YouTube saying they had gone through the film at fifteen-second intervals, finding no inaccuracies at all.
That’s pretty good for a film which suggests that HIV doesn’t cause Aids, but antiretroviral drugs do, or poverty, or drug use; that HIV probably doesn’t exist; that diagnostic tools don’t work; that Aids is just a spurious basket of symptoms invented to sell antiretroviral drugs; and the treatments don’t work anyway.
Here is Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, promoting a Spectator event next Wednesday where this film will be screened: ‘Is it legitimate to discuss the strength of the link between HIV and Aids? It’s one of these hugely emotive subjects, with a fairly strong and vociferous lobby saying that any open discussion is deplorable and tantamount to Aids denialism. Whenever any debate hits this level, I get deeply suspicious.’
Of course people will have concerns. Despite international outcry, from 2000 to 2005 South Africa implemented policies based on the belief that HIV does not cause Aids. The government refused to roll out adequate antiretroviral therapy to their dying population. It has since been estimated in two separate studies that around 350,000 people lost their lives unnecessarily to Aids in South Africa during this period.
‘Teach the controversy’ is a technique beloved of cranks, from American creationists to anti-vaccination campaigners (with whom Fraser Nelson has also, oddly, flirted). They know that in our modern media, truth is triangulated, halfway between the two most extreme views: doubt alone gets you close to winning.
But debate is also good. So what kind of debate will the Spectator be hosting? It advertises a panel of ‘leading medical authorities’. There are four people on this panel.
One is Lord Norman Fowler. He is not a ‘leading medical authority’.
Charles Geshekter is a Professor of African History from the University of Chicago. He says there is no Aids epidemic in Africa, just poverty, and that belief in the epidemic is a product of racism and ‘Western sexual stereotypes’. In fact he calls it ‘The Plague That Isn’t’, and was on President Thabo Mbeki’s notorious Aids Advisory Panel in South Africa in 2000.
Beverly Griffin is an emeritus professor at Imperial College, from the field of virology, but not HIV, who is quoted by the virusmyth website as having said in the 1990s that HIV may not cause Aids. Her views may now have changed. I hope they have. I have emailed her, and hope to hear back.
Lastly, Dr Joe Sonnabend is a retired American doctor who was greatly involved in the treatment of people with Aids, but was also long regarded by many in the Aids denialist community as a fellow traveller. He too has said in the past that the link between HIV and Aids is unproven. More recently he has distanced himself from this view.
I’m sure all these people are erudite and accomplished, but this is not a panel of ‘leading medical authorities’ on the question of whether HIV causes Aids. It’s also fair to say that, with the exception of Norman Fowler, all the Spectator’s panellists have disputed the mainstream consensus on Aids at one stage or another. I’m not saying that is unacceptable, or presuming their current position. But they may not reflect the overwhelming consensus – no dirty word – that HIV causes Aids, and that antiretroviral medication is an imperfect but overall beneficial treatment.
And then there is the film. We can’t rehash its flaws, but I would ask Fraser Nelson about one scene. Christine Maggiore appears throughout, talking emotively, explaining her choice not to take Aids medication, and saying that this is why she is alive.
But Christine Maggiore is dead, Fraser. The film tells you that, but only in tiny letters at the very end, and it says no more. She died of pneumonia, aged fifty-two, and her daughter died of untreated Aids, aged three. Because of her beliefs about Aids, Christine Maggiore did not take medication which has been proven to reduce the risk of HIV transmission to unborn children during pregnancy. Her daughter, Eliza Jane, was not tested for HIV during her short life. Then she died, aged three, of Aids.
Children don’t often drop dead aged three. Adults don’t often die aged fifty-two. These facts should be front and centre stage, in large, bold letters, scrolling across the screen as Maggiore speaks out passionately against Aids treatments. I can’t see how a film like this can possibly be a helpful starting point for an informed debate. It’s not ‘controversial’, it’s pointlessly misleading. ‘Starting a debate’ is fine. With this film, and with these panellists, the Spectator has framed a very odd event indeed.