Harvard Denialism, Mistrust, and Stigma Symposium

  
Hosted by Dr. Laura Bogart, Harvard Center for AIDS Research

On October 19, 2009 Harvard University hosted a day long symposium on AIDS Denialism and Conspiracy Theories. Presentations featured new research and social analysis with excellent commentaries and questions.

I had the opportunity to present along side Nicoli Nattrass from the University of Cape Town South Africa. Nicoli is one of the great anti-denialist researchers and activists. The Symposium also featured Pride Chigwedere from Harvard University who provided additional insights into the devastating effects of AIDS denialism in South Africa. Nicoli and Pride presented compelling research that shows how hundreds of thousands of South Africans needlessly died from the AIDS denialist policies during the Mbeki/Manto/Duesberg era.

In addition to AIDS denialism, the Symposium featured the latest research on AIDS conspiracy theories. Pioneering researcher Laura Bogart organized the Symposium and she presented some of her latest research showing the harmful consequences of AIDS conspiracy theories.

Now you can watch the Symposium presentations and discussions at the Harvard Initiative for Global Health website. Listen for the uninvited and always interesting example of AIDS Denialism in action provided by John Lauritsen. See if you can pick out other frequent bloggers in the audience.

Presentation slides

Videos of all Symposium Presentations

Q&A Session featuring AIDS Denialist John Lauritsen as himself

Symposium Summary
HIV denialism is a barrier to HIV prevention and treatment at the individual, community, and policy levels, and can increase HIV stigma, homophobia, and racism. This symposium focused on misconceptions related to HIV, defined as mistrust, suspicion, and rejection of medical research (e.g., HIV does not cause AIDS, HIV was created in a government laboratory). Researchers and community speakers defined HIV denialism and conspiracies and discussed their distinct consequences for policies, individual behavior related to HIV prevention and treatment, and HIV stigma.

The End of an Error: AIDS Denialist & Former South African Health Minister 'Manto' has Died

The former South African Health Minister 'Manto' has died.

I sat behind Manto at the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto. We were in the session where at least a few dozen AIDS activists, mostly from the Treatment Action Campaign, filed up on the stage leading a call for Manto to resign or be fired. I was struck by her detachment. I remember thinking that she was so unmoved by the scene she was either in another world or had simply gotten used to people hating her. My own impression was that she was not dealing from a full deck of cards. Nearly catatonic. At that moment she seemed like a sad case. A throwback to my days working on psychiatric inpatient units.

Manto will be, and should be remembered as the person who implemented Mbeki’s AIDS denialist policies. Manto may very well have been the perfect person to serve as Mbeki’s Minister of AIDS Denial. But let us not forget that these were Mbeki’s policies. Manto was certainly complacent in AIDS Denialism, but she was not the architect. Manto played a critical role in the death of over 350,000 of her people and the senseless HIV infections of 35,000 babies. She also received personal counsel from Matthias Rath and Roberto Giraldo. Her legacy is theirs.

UPDATE: New York Times Story

AP Reports
CELEAN JACOBSON, Associated Press Writer

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa's former health ministerManto Tshabalala-Msimang, who gained notoriety for her dogged promotion of lemons, garlic and olive oil to treat AIDS, has died. She was 69.

The ruling African National Congress said Tshabalala-Msimang died in a Johannesburg hospital Wednesday from complications related to a 2007 liver transplant. Media outlets said she was possibly undergoing tests for a possible second transplant when she died.

HIV, AIDS, and One Year Later: No Rest for Christne Maggiore

There is apparently no rest for Christine Maggiore. Exploited by AIDS Denialists throughout her bout with HIV infection, the manipulation of facts and twisting of reality continues one year after her sad death. Christine Maggiore tested HIV positive in 1992, as proven by her HIV positive test results shown in the film House of Numbers. Christine died of pneumonia and disseminated herpes (an AIDS defining condition) as shown on her Death Certificate.

Now we see an autopsy summary that includes her having another AIDS defining condition, Pneumocystis jiroveci (carinii) pneumonia (PCP) - although the actual autopsy report is unavailable and her Death Certificate shows no autopsy was conducted. Yet, the report states that Christine Maggiore did not die of AIDS. Rather, she died of antibiotic poisoning.

Coincidentally(?), we are to believe that her baby Eliza Jane Scovill also died of antibiotics despite the official report by the Los Angeles Coroner that ruled she died from complications of AIDS. At first, AIDS Denialists claimed that Christine Maggiore died from a ‘bad detox’. Then there was speculation that she died from the stress caused by the Law and Order SVU television episode that portrayed her AIDS Denial. Now it seems Law and Order is off the hook and antibiotics killed Christine.

Does Luc Montagnier Make the Case for AIDS Denialism?

If you have wondered just how manipulative and destructive AIDS Denialism can be, look no further than the ‘documentary’ House of Numbers. As I have posted before, House of Numbers uses the classic tactics of AIDS Denialism to create the illusion of a debate among scientists as to whether HIV causes AIDS.

Images can be powerful and persuasive. In the age of digital editing, anyone can snip away in their own home to create what could appear to be a credible film. Such is the case with House of Numbers.

The latest mischief focuses on four minutes of snips from an interview in House of Numbers with Nobel Prize winning discoverer of HIV, Dr. Luc Montagnier. AIDS Denialists around the world have rejoiced at those four minutes of footage. Aside from the Rethinking AIDS Society etc… the video of Dr. Montagnier has quickly taking on a life of its own with…

Killer syndrome: The Aids denialists

Why does a small band of scientists and campaigners persist in denying the link between HIV and Aids, when the evidence that they are wrong is overwhelming?
by Rob Sharp, The Independent, London, December 1, 2009

A middle-aged man walks into an East London café and apologises for being late. With his clipped hair and bus-driver's uniform of thick overcoat, shirt, and branded tie, he looks like any other public service employee. But soon he delivers a speech of startling ferocity against the medical establishment.

Mike explains that he runs a London-based health website on which he posts articles and links to information that questions whether HIV causes Aids, disputes the existence of HIV, and denies the fact that unprotected sex helps to spread it. He offers support for those who, he says, are "negotiating with medical authorities over taking a different approach to dealing with their circumstances." He claims to get thousands of hits on his site and has helped advise several people who have been diagnosed with HIV and are launching legal action against their local health authorities, in the belief that they have been unfairly treated by the doctors who are trying to help them.

Mike is an Aids denialist. He shares the view of a global network of academics and campaigners that follow the proclamations of Peter Duesberg, a cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who believes HIV does not cause Aids. And, alarmingly, 2009 has been a good year for the denialist community.

Science, pseudoscience and professional responsibility

New article in Health-e

By John Moore
Surveys have consistently shown that over 40% of Americans do not believe in evolution. It is not surprising, then, that our society is vulnerable to being fooled by people who misrepresent scientific or historical facts.

Henry Bauer in search of Nessies

We are now all too familiar with the crazed activities of the 'Birthers', anad hoc, right wing political group refusing to accept President Obama was born in the United States. Earlier this year, we saw media coverage of the insane views of a clique that refuses to accept American astronauts walked on the moon 40 years ago. The "9/11 Truth Movement" flourishes on the internet, arguing that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not hit by hijacked jetliners, but were blown up by the CIA at the behest of Israeli intelligence. Conspiracy groups like these usually do little real damage to society, although the activities of the "9/11 Truth Movement" foster anti-Semitism and insult the memories of the nearly 3000 Americans who died on 9/11. Unfortunately, other equally bizarre and factually unfounded, internet-based conspiracy groups can, and do, harm, even kill, significant numbers of people. This is not just an American problem, as the ripple effects of conspiracy theories spread worldwide via the internet. Indeed, the most serious consequences of one such group’s actions have been felt in Africa.

A small group of misguided and, in some cases malicious, individuals have long promoted the view that HIV does not cause AIDS or, in an even more bizarre twist of the truth, that HIV does not even exist. An even nastier variation of the theme is that HIV was created by the US government as a device to kill "undesirables", such as people with black skins or who are gay. None of these opinions is true, and there is not a shred of credible scientific or historic evidence to support them. Unfortunately, the Mbeki administration in South Africa put in place policies based around the premises that HIV is harmless but anti-retroviral drugs are dangerous. This decision caused over 330,000 unnecessary deaths during the first half of this decade. And yet the "AIDS Denialists" even question this death toll, a tactic no different from Holocaust Deniers asking "Did six million really die". Many Americans and Europeans have also died, persuaded by the "AIDS Denialists" that they did not need to take anti-retroviral drugs to treat their HIV infections. Distrust of the federal government and the medical establishment among African American communities has adversely affected AIDS prevention and treatment programs in the USA, in no small measure due to the crazy belief that HIV was created as a weapon of selective genocide. Indeed, this particular rumor even re-surfaced in the last Presidential election campaign. Real people die real deaths as a direct result of the pseudo-science promoted by the "AIDS Denialists".

In a similar vein, groups that claim vaccination is harmful have harmed global immunization programs, and thereby caused avoidable deaths worldwide. A conspiracy theory group often called "The Mercuries" has been particularly vociferous in its argument that a mercury-containing preservative found in some vaccines causes autism. There is less mercury in a vaccine shot than in a tuna fish sandwich, and the mercury present in the fish is in a more dangerous chemical form. Overall, a now vast body of solid scientific evidence has proven that autism has no connection whatsoever to any vaccine or vaccine component. This is now settled science within the professional community, which understands that the cause of autism is based in human genetics. But despite the facts, the distrust of vaccines that has been created by “The Mercuries” and other anti-vaccine conspiracy groups is now damaging efforts to counter swine flu by vaccination, both in America and, increasingly, elsewhere. The polio vaccine eradication campaign has been harmed, notably in Nigeria, by rumors that the vaccine is contaminated with dangerous chemicals, or even with HIV, or that it was designed by “white people to sterilize black people”. As a result, this dangerous infection has still not been eradicated from Africa, where it lingers on, killing and paralyzing yet more people.

The mindsets of the "AIDS Denialists" and "The Mercuries" are similar to each other. Both groups are irrational on the science, twisting the facts to a perverse extent and stubbornly ignoring and rejecting all the evidence that speaks against their views. Each group is bolstered by a very small number of scientists whose paper qualifications provide them with a superficial, wafer-thin veneer of academic credibility. The two conspiracy groups contain individuals who will resort to threats of violence and who harass those who dare to speak up against them. A common tactic of both groups is to smear scientists and physicians who recommend AIDS drugs or the use of vaccines as being nothing more than paid tools of the pharmaceutical industry. Yet both the "AIDS Denialists" and "The Mercuries" are supported by promoters of “alternative (i.e., quack) therapies" who have a financial interest in damning approved anti-HIV drugs or licensed vaccines. “Ambulance-chasing” lawyers have also been heavily involved with the anti-vaccine groups, fostering the hopes of grieving parents that they (and the lawyers) might receive a payout from a scientifically ill-informed jury.

The conspiracy theory groups also receive the support of a small, but noisy, subset of media professionals who seem attracted to the personalities involved, smelling stories in the controversies. This has been particularly problematic recently in the anti-vaccine arena, where some American chat shows and right wing news programs have given undue attention to “The Mercuries”. Bizarre as it may seem, the views of medically unqualified Hollywood celebrities are given equal, or even greater, weight on these shows than those of expert physicians and scientists. Science and pseudoscience should never be “balanced” in this way. To make an analogy: if a film star claimed that we should not fly on a jetliner because mercury contamination could make the wings fall off, we would simply laugh, preferring to listen to the views of qualified aeronautical engineers and metallurgists (and to our own experience as travelers). Yet, nowadays, film stars’ views on vaccine composition are given huge weight by some chat show hosts.

The "AIDS Denialists" and "The Mercuries" are no different from the "Birthers", the moon-landing hoaxers, the "9/11 Truth" members and the Holocaust Deniers in the irrationality of their views and their belief in government conspiracies and cover-ups. Indeed, some members of the various groups flit from one conspiracy-themed web site to another, seeking and finding solace in a variant form of irrationality. One of the very few academic supporters of the" AIDS Denialism" movement also investigates the Loch Ness Monster, Alien Crop Circles and other such fringe or paranormal themes. It would be funny if it were not so tragic.
What can be done about dispelling this kind of damaging nonsense? America has a strong tradition of free speech, so dangerous views will continue to be promoted, however harmful they are to public health and the best interests of society. The internet is the territory of the conspiracist, and it is likely to remain so. But media professionals should not be so unquestioning of the science when they provide airtime or column inches to those with fringe views. Controversy may help sell advertising, but at what cost?

A particular concern is that the ideas that HIV is harmless and that vaccines cause autism have been underpinned by a very few academics or physicians working in American or European universities or hospitals. These “thought leaders” for the conspiracy groups should now be made to face the professional consequences of their scientifically unsupportable actions. Is academic freedom such a precious concept that scientists can hide behind it while betraying the public so blatantly? When the facts are so solidly against views that kill people, there must be a price to pay. Post-tenure review of the progress of academic careers is something the university system could put in place if it chose to. How can bona fide universities justify their employees teaching students, even medical students, that HIV is harmless? How can academic and medical institutions still employ people whose views lead to the deaths of over 330,000 South Africans? Shielding the proponents of pseudoscience by doing nothing is a dereliction of a duty to the public. It is also moral cowardice. It is now time for Africa to speak out and demand action against those who have been responsible for so many deaths on this continent.

In denial: The McGill Daily’s Stephanie Law exposes the dangers of ignoring the causal link between HIV and AIDS

Published in the McGill Daily
By Stephanie Law
Published: Nov 16, 2009

Christina Maggiore died of an AIDS-related illness on December 27, 2008. She was a successful businesswoman who started a multimillion-dollar import/export clothing company, and a freelance consultant for U.S. government export programs. Maggiore is most notorious for her role as an HIV-positive activist who promoted the idea that HIV is not the real cause of AIDS. She was an HIV-denialist.

Maggiore was diagnosed with HIV in 1992. In 1994, she met Peter Duesberg, a molecular biology professor at the University of California at Berkley. Duesberg convinced Maggiore that HIV does not lead to AIDS. A year later, Maggiore started one of the largest networks of HIV-denialists and skeptics, called Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives.

How to spot an AIDS denialist

Rogues, pseudoscientists, snake oil peddlers – Seth Kalichman reveals the sinister tactics used by those who deny the link between HIV and AIDS in a new article in The New Humanist magazine.

Imagine that you or someone you love just received an HIV positive test result. The news is devastating. After a short time you begin to face the diagnosis. You turn to the Internet for answers. Searching the words “AIDS diagnosis” brings up thousands of websites. A whirlwind of information spins your mind.

One credible-looking website, Aids.org, reads: “There is no cure for AIDS. There are drugs that can slow down the HIV virus and slow down the damage to your immune system. There is no way to ‘clear’ HIV from the body. Other drugs can prevent or treat opportunistic infections (OIs). In most cases, these drugs work very well. The newer, stronger ARVs have also helped reduce the rates of most OIs. A few OIs, however, are still very difficult to treat.”

With a click of the mouse, an equally credible-looking site, Aliveandwell.org, asks: “Did you know … Many experts contend that AIDS is not a fatal, incurable condition caused by HIV? That most of the AIDS information we receive is based on unsubstantiated assumptions, unfounded estimates and improbable predictions? That the symptoms associated with AIDS are treatable using non-toxic, immune-enhancing therapies that have restored the health of people diagnosed with AIDS and that have enabled those truly at risk to remain well?”

Which do you trust? Which do you believe? Which would you want to believe? Would you choose to believe there may be hope offered by medical treatments or would you prefer to believe that HIV is harmless? This simple example illustrates the lure of AIDS denialism.

Read the whole story at The New Humanist.

"Hello Professor, a Brent Leung is here to see you"

House of Numbers continues to be the talk of AIDS Denialism. There are many lessons to be learned from the AIDS Denialist crockumentary House of Numbers. The real lesson for scientists is that just because a guy has a camera crew does not mean you should agree to be interviewed by him. Thinking twice before sitting down in front of a camera is a worthwhile lesson indeed. The October 15 issue of Nature, a magazine well known for its excellent book reviews, published a great story on the hazards of scientists appearing in documentaries gone wrong. Too bad the article came out after House of Numbers was in the can. I post the article here for future reference.

And don’t forget to check out the new House of Numbers Website. Everyone should see House of Numbers.But be sure to read up before going.

UPDATE: Editors at Science Daily react to the misrepresentation (lying?) about T-Cells and AIDS twisted in House of Numbskulls.

UPDATE: Joseph Sonnabend, MD - Physician and AIDS Researcher speaks out on the fraud behind House of Numbers.

Caught on camera

of page

Abstract

What to do when you are interviewed for an unscientific documentary

Nature 461, 848 (15 October 2009) | doi:10.1038/461848a; Published online 14 October 2009

Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has always had to deal with angry e-mails from people who think that global warming isn't happening, and that Schneider is part of a conspiracy to promote it. He has been vocal about the dangers of climate change for decades.

In the past week, however, Schneider has been deluged by furious messages. They have been provoked by a clip circulating on the Internet from Not Evil Just Wrong, a documentary film claiming that global-warming fears are 'hysteria'. The clip explains how Schneider did an interview — and then how the university informed the film-makers that it had rescinded permission for using any of the Stanford footage and that Schneider had withdrawn permission to use his name or interview. Schneider says he backed out when he realized that the film-makers were polemicists who had lied to him about their intentions. Some climate-sceptic commentators are accusing him of censorship.

Schneider is by no means the first scientist to feel hoodwinked by film-makers. British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins ended up in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a film purporting to show how academics who do not accept evolution are frozen out of academia. Dawkins says that he was conned — that the film-makers had presented the project to him as an even-handed effort entitled Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion. Carl Wunsch, an oceanographer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, felt he was "swindled" in a like manner by the producers of The Great Global Warming Swindle. And Nikos Logothetis of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, let a seemingly objective film crew into his primate laboratory — only to see the footage used in an animal-rights documentary that slams him as cruel.

For many scientists, the natural response to such stories is to stop talking to the media. But that would be an overreaction. For one thing, such misrepresentations are rare. Schneider estimates that he has given some 3,500 interviews since the 1970s, and only twice has he been "set up". Most journalists and documentarians are honestly trying to report the facts, and scientists have a responsibility to tell the public about their work — especially if it is supported by public money.

Fortunately, scientists can do much to protect themselves. When someone asks for an interview, for example, a scientist should enquire about starting assumptions, the intended audience and the identity of the project's backers. And, if possible, researchers should check the earlier work of the journalists and any companies behind the film for a partisan tone, or unacceptable levels of sensationalism.

But if these efforts fail, and it is discovered too late that the film-makers are bent on using an on-tape interview to promote a view that seems unscientific, the question becomes what steps to take. There is rarely a way to withdraw an interview that was given on the record, for good reason. In any case, making a fuss can be a gift of publicity to film-makers. Schneider admits that he might have spared himself the deluge of e-mails had he just ignored the makers of Not Evil Just Wrong.

A better approach might well be to complain to the television channels and broadcasting regulators, many of which have standards for their programming. The Great Global Warming Swindle was censured by Ofcom, Britain's broadcasting regulator, for breaking several rules in its broadcasting code. And when the same documentary was aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, it was followed by a point-by-point debate and rebuttal.

In the end, this is perhaps the most effective way to limit the damage. Bad journalism is best met not with red-faced indignation, but with good journalism. The truth is the best revenge.

Harvard Symposium on Denialism, Mistrust & Stigma

Death by denial:Symposium explores HIV denial, conspiracy theories

By Alvin Powell Harvard Gazette

People who deny that the HIV virus causes AIDS continue to persist in their beliefs despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, nurtured by the broad reach of the Internet and cherry-picked scientific claims, AIDS authorities said Monday.

Researchers from Harvard, elsewhere in the United States, and South Africa convened at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts to decry HIV “denialism,” saying that the continued questioning of HIV’s role in AIDS harms those infected with the virus by discouraging both testing and treatment.

According to the speakers, denialism takes two major forms. Some skeptics deny that HIV plays a role in AIDS, or that it even exists, while others believe in AIDS conspiracies, acknowledging that HIV causes AIDS but questioning HIV’s origins, saying it results from a government conspiracy, is intended as a genocide campaign against blacks, that it was created in CIA labs, or is of other sinister origin or purpose.

The event, sponsored by the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, was presented in conjunction with the Carpenter Center’s exhibit “ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993.” The exhibit contains posters, T-shirts, fliers, and pamphlets from ACT UP’s AIDS activism campaigns which, through sometimes graphic and jarring messages, pushed government action against AIDS. The campaign argued that the government dragged its feet because of homophobia and racism aimed at two groups prone to the ailment: gay men and intravenous drug users, who are often minorities.
Laura Bogart, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston, introduced the event, saying that denialism also includes odd beliefs, such as that drugs for HIV treatment actually cause AIDS. Denialism, she said, is gaining momentum because of the reach that its proponents have on the Internet, and it may have greater traction in communities that already mistrust the government because of past discrimination, revelations of secret medical experiments, and the like.

The symposium examined how denialism affects prevention and treatment, public policy, and human rights.

“Bad ideas have bad consequences,” Bogart said.

Kalichman, professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut, said denialist beliefs are surprisingly widespread. He said most people’s attitude when hearing of HIV denial is, “Oh, those people are still around?” In the uncertain early years of the AIDS epidemic, Kalichman said, denialists were dissidents from the prevailing but still uncertain scientific views. As the body of evidence about the nature of HIV and AIDS grew, dissent turned into denial, wrapped in conspiracy theories. Now, Kalichman lumps HIV denialists with those who deny the Holocaust and global warming, and who believe 9/11 conspiracy theories. All use similar strategies, he said, including false experts, bad science, and selective use of valid scientific results.

Kalichman cited a 2007 report on 696 gay men in five U.S. cities that showed a surprisingly high acceptance of denialist beliefs. Forty-five percent, he said, agreed with the statement “HIV does not cause AIDS,” and 51 percent agreed with the statement “HIV drugs can harm you more than help you,” remarking that it would be troubling if even half those numbers believed such statements.

Kalichman said research shows that the Internet is a critical source of denialist information, and that people who hold denialist beliefs are more likely to have symptoms, less likely to adhere to drug regimens, and less likely to take treatment medication in the first place.

Denialism may have done its most damage in South Africa during the tenure of President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki, who endorsed denialist beliefs, delayed the beginning of large-scale AIDS drug treatment, which allowed the pandemic to grow unchecked.
Nicoli Nattrass, director of the AIDS and Society Research Unit and economics professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, presented preliminary results from a large-scale study of teenagers and young adults there. The results, which are still being analyzed, show that denialist beliefs are held disproportionately by black African men and are far more likely to be held by those supportive of Mbeki’s health minister, who has been replaced by the current administration.

Recent research showed how damaging denialist beliefs can be, concluding that Mbeki’s failure to roll out HIV drugs between 2000 and 2005 resulted in 330,000 unnecessary deaths and the infection of 3,500 infants with HIV

Can Peter Duesberg be Trusted on Cancer?

This week's News Week Magazine raises questions regarding Peter Duesberg's credibility as a cancer researcher. Duesberg is best known for his AIDS Denialism. What many may not know is that Peter Duesberg maintains a small laboratory privately funded by Robert Leppo where he researches potential causes of cancer.

Peter Duesberg was among the first scientists to isolate cancer-causing genes and cancer-related retroviruses. Early in his career, Duesberg worked with other Berkeley scientists, including acclaimed molecular biologist G. Steve Martin, to discover the first cancer-causing genes—oncogenes. The Berkeley Group was among the first to demonstrate that retroviruses carry oncogenes that transform normal cells into deadly cancer cells.

Moron AIDS Denialist Film House of Numbers: Notes from the show

Having seen the AIDS Denialist film House of Numbers, I must say that it is worse than anyone could imagine. The film misuses the words of leading AIDS scientists to raise doubts about whether HIV causes AIDS, the validity of HIV testing, and the benefits of HIV treatments. Context is everything, and House of Numbers creates an illusion of debate among scientists by placing scientists along side of pseudoscientists. All Doctors and Professors are equal in the eyes of Director Brent Leung.

Contorting words to misrepresent reality is what AIDS Deniers do. Some AIDS Deniers must distort reality to protect their bubble of denial. HIV infected persons who are living in an AIDS denial delusion appear in the film, such as the late Christine Maggiore. Also not surprising are the words of the professional AIDS Deniers, who simply repeat the denialist mantra heard so many times before. The mosaic is fascinating to those of us who study AIDS Denialism, reaffirming to those living in denial, and boring to tears for everyone else.