AIDS Denialism in the Court: Clark Baker for the Defense

Clark Baker with the late Kari Stockely who
died of AIDS after falling into AIDS denialism

Clark Baker and his crock business venture, the Office of Medical and Scientific Justice (OMSJ) are back at it. Clark and his team of fake HIV experts are infesting the US Military Justice System with AIDS Denialism testimony.

The cases that Baker targets are tragic -- typically involving HIV positive people who are accused of exposing others to HIV without disclosing their status. Failure to disclose HIV is a complicated and serious issue. No one has the right to knowingly expose another person to a life threatening disease. But we live in a society that has made it enormously difficult to disclose HIV status. AIDS stigma has not gone away. People living with HIV face rejection, discrimination, and even violence when they disclose. They have to deal with disclosure issues every day. When accused of a crime for failing to disclose HIV, they deserve a competent defense.

So it may seem hard to believe that defense attorneys would employ the AIDS Deniers at OMSJ.

In recent cases, Baker and the gang have called into question the reliability of Elisa and Western Blot tests. You know, the package insert says a single test is not diagnostic;  the tests cross-react to all sorts of antibodies; clinical algorithms are circular; PCR is not diagnostic; RNA is not the virus; there is no gold standard for testing HIV antibodies; if a lab tech dilutes the specimen wrong everyone tests positive; HIV diagnosis is a sham. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing we have not heard before.

But when unchallenged by real science, the words of a fake expert can confuse a jury and raise reasonable doubt.

When unexposed as crocks, the AIDS Deniers can easily fool people into thinking they are scientists.

Who are the OMSJ experts?

AIDS and Climate Change: Are All Denialists Created Equal?

A Cabal of Bankers and Sister Souljah

By Stephan Lewandowsky
Winthrop Professor, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia
Posted on 9 September 2012

One of the many adverse consequences of knee-jerk science rejection is the voluminous noise generated in response to certain events, such as the recent publication of my paper on rejection of science and conspiracist ideation. Whenever baseless accusations are launched, whether against me or other scientists, this detracts attention from other potentially substantive issues.

My inbox has been overflowing with messages relating to my paper, to the point where I can no longer guarantee a personal response to each message. Some emails raise good points and substantive scientific issues. Likewise, the comment stream on my earlier posts contain some interesting points, and I apologize for not being able to engage with the comments to the extent that I would like—I am however monitoring them so I can make a note of important insights.

I will endeavour to take up those substantive issues here as time permits. I consider the following points to be particularly worthy of discussion in connection with my forthcoming paper: