The Other Side of AIDS

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The Other Side of AIDS
The Other Side of AIDS.jpg
Directed byRobin Scovill
Written byRobin Scovill
Produced byEric E. Paulson
Robin Scovill
CinematographyRobin Scovill
Edited byRobin Scovill
Distributed byHazel Wood Pictures
Release date
  • June 13, 2004 (2004-06-13)(Newfest)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Other Side of AIDS is a 2004 pseudoscience film by Robin Scovill. Through interviews with prominent AIDS denialists and HIV-positive people who have refused anti-HIV medication, the film makes the claim that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and that HIV treatments are harmful, conclusions which are rejected by medical and scientific consensus. [1] The film was reviewed in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter in 2004, and received additional attention in 2005, when Scovill's three-year-old daughter died of untreated AIDS. [2]

Contents

Background and content

The film opens with the April 23, 1984 press conference of the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Margaret Heckler, announcing the discovery of HIV. It then moves to the appearance of HIV/AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore at a Foo Fighters concert organized by bassist Nate Mendel in support of Maggiore's group, Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives. [3] The interviewees include Peter Duesberg, a professor "whose stock in the scientific community declined sharply once he began second-guessing the role of HIV" in AIDS, and Christine Maggiore, whose organization "militates against HIV drug treatments." [4] Variety notes that Maggiore is the wife of the director/producer, a fact the film omits. In addition to these two prominent AIDS denialists, the documentary features several HIV-positive people who have refused anti-HIV medications. Along with Maggiore, they blame AIDS deaths in part on negative thinking by victims, a "fatalism" they say is encouraged by support groups. [4] [5] Several also blame AIDS on the "gay lifestyle". [4]

The film does not make a substantial attempt to balance the beliefs of AIDS denialists with the conclusions of medical scientists that HIV causes AIDS. [6] Although two AIDS researchers are interviewed, both reviews of the film remark that these representatives seem to have been cast specifically to portray researchers in a negative light. Variety refers to the two as "fanatics", people chosen by Scovill because their displayed emotions outweigh their "perfectly rational" arguments. [4] AIDS Researcher Julio Montaner, interviewed around the film's Vancouver premiere, said that such emotion comes from fear for patients who may take the film's arguments seriously: "The success of the drugs depends to a high degree on the commitment of the patient to take the medication properly." [5]

In the documentary, produced in 2004, Scovill's HIV-positive wife, Christine Maggiore claimed that she and her two children were healthy despite not taking anti-HIV medications. In 2005, Maggiore's and Scovill's three-year-old daughter, Eliza Jane, died of complications of untreated AIDS. [2] In 2008, Maggiore herself died at the age of 52 after a protracted bout of pneumonia, with several other AIDS-related illnesses. [7] [8]

The executive producer of The Other Side of AIDS was Robert Leppo, a venture capitalist who has also funded the activities of well-known AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg. [9] [10]

Music

The film features a score by Brad Mossman along with the songs "Stacked Actors" and "Learn to Fly" by Foo Fighters, and "Join Life" by Warm Wires. [11] [12]

Release

The Other Side of AIDS premiered on VHS at the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival (Newfest) on June 13, 2004, [13] drawing criticism from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). [14] The film had its international premiere at the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival on 24 September 2004. [15] It was shown at the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival on November 8, 2004, [16] where it received special mention in the International Documentary category. [2] [17]

Critical reception

The Other Side of AIDS was reviewed in Variety and, briefly, in The Hollywood Reporter . [4] [6]

Variety concluded that while the documentary "fails to present a particularly compelling argument," it succeeds in making the viewer "root for the underdog" by contrasting a long line of sympathetic AIDS denialists with two angry researchers. The review says the strongest argument in the film is an emotional allegation that the government forcibly takes children from HIV-positive parents in the United States, while the weakest point is its tendency to "place the blame [for the AIDS epidemic] exclusively on homosexual behavior." [4]

The Hollywood Reporter states that the film is "a substantial contribution to the international debate about the AIDS epidemic", but faults it for being technically "pedestrian", composed mostly of "talking heads and printed information onscreen". [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Duesberg hypothesis is the claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV, but instead that AIDS is caused by noninfectious factors such as recreational and pharmaceutical drug use and that HIV is merely a harmless passenger virus. The hypothesis was popularized by Peter Duesberg, a professor of biology at University of California, Berkeley, from whom the hypothesis gets its name. The scientific consensus is that the Duesberg hypothesis is incorrect and that HIV is the cause of AIDS. The most prominent supporters of the hypothesis are Duesberg himself, biochemist and vitamin proponent David Rasnick, and journalist Celia Farber. The scientific community generally contends that Duesberg's arguments in favor of the hypothesis are the result of cherry-picking predominantly outdated scientific data and selectively ignoring evidence that demonstrates HIV's role in causing AIDS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Duesberg</span> German-American molecular biologist (born 1936)

Peter Heinz Hermann Duesberg is a German-American molecular biologist and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his early research into the genetic aspects of cancer. He is a proponent of AIDS denialism, the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Paul Murray Fleiss was an American pediatrician and author known for his unconventional medical views. Fleiss was a popular and sought-after pediatrician in the Greater Los Angeles area, both among poor and middle-class patients living near his Los Feliz office and among Southern California celebrities. Fleiss was a breastfeeding and anti-circumcision advocate. He recommended but did not insist upon childhood vaccinations, and stated he could be "convinced either way" as to whether HIV causes AIDS. In 1995, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and bank fraud in relation to his daughter Heidi's prostitution ring.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIV/AIDS denialism</span> False belief that HIV does not cause AIDS

HIV/AIDS denialism is the belief, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Some of its proponents reject the existence of HIV, while others accept that HIV exists but argue that it is a harmless passenger virus and not the cause of AIDS. Insofar as they acknowledge AIDS as a real disease, they attribute it to some combination of sexual behavior, recreational drugs, malnutrition, poor sanitation, haemophilia, or the effects of the medications used to treat HIV infection (antiretrovirals).

Mark Arnold Wainberg, was a Canadian HIV/AIDS researcher and HIV/AIDS activist. He was the Director of the McGill University AIDS Centre at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital and Professor of Medicine and of Microbiology at McGill University. His laboratory primarily studies HIV reverse transcriptase, the molecular basis for drug resistance, and gene therapy. He received a B.Sc. from McGill University in 1966, a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1972, and did his post-doctoral research at Hadassah Medical School of the Hebrew University.

Christine Joy Maggiore was an HIV-positive activist and promoter of HIV/AIDS denialism. She was the founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization which disputes the link between HIV and AIDS and urges HIV-positive pregnant women to avoid anti-HIV medication. Maggiore authored and self-published the book What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong?

Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives is a 501(c) non-profit organization of AIDS denialists. The organization's stated mission is to "present information that raises questions about the accuracy of HIV tests, the safety and effectiveness of AIDS drug treatments, and the validity of most common assumptions about HIV and AIDS." The organization's founder, Christine Maggiore estimated in 2005 that the organization had assisted about 50 HIV-positive mothers in developing legal strategies to avoid having their children tested or treated for HIV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvey Bialy</span> American molecular biologist and AIDS denialist

Harvey Bialy was an American molecular biologist and AIDS denialist. He was one of the signatories to a letter to the editor by the "Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis", which denied that HIV was the cause of AIDS, and was a member of the controversial and heavily criticized South African Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel convened by Thabo Mbeki in 2000. Bialy authored a scientific biography of Peter Duesberg, a fellow AIDS denialist, in 2004.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denialism</span> Persons choice to deny psychologically uncomfortable truth

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References

  1. "The Evidence that HIV Causes AIDS". National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease . Retrieved 2008-09-29.
  2. 1 2 3 Charles Ornstein; Daniel Costello (2005-09-24). "A Mother's Denial, a Daughter's Death". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2008-09-25.
  3. Toushin, Abbi (2005-01-03). "The Other Side of AIDS: (Hazel Wood Pictures)". Campus Circle.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Scheib, Ronnie (2004-06-28). "Review: The Other Side of AIDS". Variety . Retrieved 2008-09-25.
  5. 1 2 Carmichael, Amy (2004-09-25). "Documentary challenging idea HIV causes AIDS airs; support falls for annual walk". Canadian Press . Retrieved 2008-09-25.
  6. 1 2 3 The Hollywood Reporter review, Kirk Honeycutt, November 12, 2004
  7. "Christine Maggiore, vocal skeptic of AIDS research, dies at 52". Los Angeles Times . 2008-12-30. Retrieved 2008-12-30.
  8. Link to death certificate Archived 2009-04-12 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Krieger, Lisa (2004-01-27). "Berkeley Biologist Back in Spotlight". San Jose Mercury News .
  10. Nattrass, Nicoli (2013-11-01). The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back. Columbia University Press. p. 115. ISBN   978-0-231-14913-6.
  11. Smith, Tara C.; Novella, Steven P. (21 August 2007). "HIV Denial in the Internet Era". PLOS Medicine. 4 (7). e256: e256. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256 . PMC   1949841 . PMID   17713982.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  12. Scovill, Robin (Director) (13 June 2004). The Other Side of AIDS (Motion picture). US: Hazel Wood Pictures. 85 minutes in.
  13. Staff writer (2004-06-13). "Film Listings". The New York Times.
  14. Staff writer (2004). "New York City LGBT New Festival Promotes AIDS Denialism". ACT UP.
  15. Staff writer (2004). "Festival Schedule". Vancouver International Film Festival . Archived from the original on 2004-09-30.
  16. Staff writer (2004-11-07). "Openings". The Guide. Los Angeles Times . Vol. 123, no. 340. p. E29 via Newspapers.com.
  17. Fisher, Rebecca; Stulz, Anne (2004-11-14). "AFI Fest 2004 Presented by Audi Celebrates Finale with US Premiere of The Sea Inside" (PDF). AFI .