Monday, March 5, I read somewhere online that David Remnick's New Yorker had finally ridden to the aid of liberal magazine media. It had given Roger Hodge's Harper's the thrashing it so long and richly deserved for running that dangerous AIDS article by that horrid Celia Farber last spring. The New Yorker article, boldly entitled "The Denialists," was said to be a thorough rebuttal to Farber's wild-hair rantings. Hodge's Folly, the gaffe of all gaffes, had been redressed. It had taken a year, but order and balance were now restored to print media. Glossy liberal thumbsuckers were safe to read again. No received knowledge or consensus opinions will ever again be challenged. Sorry for the disruption. You can all go back to sleep now. Nothing to see here.
I'm not an "AIDS dissident." I'm not educated enough on the ins and outs of the issue to give myself such airs. But I have been on the planet through the entire AIDS era. A man I admired died of "it" early on, before they had even given "it" a name. I watched as, because of how and when and whom the epidemic struck, it became the most politicized health issue of my lifetime. Not the only, surely, but the most. Over the years, I developed a gnawing skepticism for much of what the health industry and attendant media promulgated as Absolute Truth about the disease, its causes and cures. As I have with SARS, and bird flu, and anthrax, and so on and so on. I do reserve the right to maintain an open mind, and to listen to all sides. I am suspicious of groupthink and consensus opinion, pretty much regardless of topic. I most heartily support the right of dissidents of all sorts, in all sectors of our public life, to speak, and back when I had a public forum I happily gave them opportunities to do so.
Celia Farber was one of them. So when I read that The New Yorker had picked up the Harper's gauntlet, I bought a copy and read Michael Specter's "The Denialists."
It is hardly the stinging rebuke I was led to expect. In fact, it's almost self-parodyingly mild-mannered and unspectacular, even for The New Yorker. It's just a journeyman's standard-issue report on AIDS in South Africa, recycling off-the-rack opinions and attitudes we've all read in countless previous articles. About how AIDS is ravaging South Africa, but President Thabo Mbeki, while "rooting around on the Internet" (which of course "has made it possible for every conspiracy theory to flourish"), came under the thrall of the "denialists," a term Specter flogs many times in the seven-page article. Mbeki and a few of his similarly benighted ministers thus refuse their people the proper drugs and treatment, so they turn to various homegrown quack cures. Ta dum dee dum.
One thing that is new is Specter's gingerly handling of Peter Duesberg. In the old days, if the standard AIDS reporter mentioned Duesberg at all, it was to dismiss him in the fewest possible words as the king of the quacks, the crank who inspired the denialist movement. Post-Harper's that's not so easily done, and Specter devotes roughly a full page out of seven to Duesberg's career, his arguments and his influence, even allowing him some of the most cogent and sensible quotes in the article. For that matter, Specter also quotes Mbeki, and one of his supporters, making eminent sense as they explain why black South Africans might be resistant to the invasive, condescending, colonialist pressures of Western pharmaceutical companies.
Seems to me that if it took a year for a rival publication to come up with a response this limp and wan, there has been some sort of shift in the power relationship between the "denialists" and the AIDS industry, and one that can hardly be shrugged off as the pernicious influence of the conspiracy theory-spreading Internet on ignorant savages like Thabo Mbeki who go "rooting around" there.
Which brings up something I did find remarkable: the way Specter depicts South Africans. Over the last few years, researching a book on blackface, I immersed myself in 19th- and 20th-century caricatures and stereotypes of Africans and African-Americans. I became convinced that over the last several decades we have purged our public entertainments and discourse of the most egregious of this imagery, but we have yet to purge ourselves of the attitudes – the condescension, the assumption of intellectual and cultural superiority – that went into them.
Specter's depictions of South Africans illustrate my point too painfully well. His condescension is palpable, absolutely Victorian. There's the horrible, maybe unintended insinuation in that image of the leader of a sovereign African nation "rooting around." There's the scene, straight out of minstrel show buffoonery, in which Specter interviews Thami Mseleku, South African Director-General of Health: "Msekelu is a huge, pear-shaped man with short curly hair. He was wearing a yellow-checked shirt and a blue suit, and several times during our conversation he leaped nimbly from his desk to stroll about the office…" Did he dance an ooga-booga dance? There are the several scenes in which Africans exploring herbal remedies rather than take Western pharmaceuticals are almost, though not quite – this being the 21st century, and The New Yorker – described as jungle witch-doctors practicing ju-ju. A hundred years ago the writing would have been more blunt and candid.
Everything I've read from dissidents, white and black, about why many Africans are mistrustful of and resistant to Western AIDS treatment is encapsulated here. To point this out is not bootless contrarianism, and it most certainly is not "denialism." Seems to me, as an observer, that much denial is coming from Specter's side, the side that denies questioning, denies doubt, denies the right or even the mental capacity of Africans to make their own decisions about their health. I am not a scientist – nor, to my knowledge, are Farber, Hodge, Remnick or Specter. But I know when people are being insulted and condescended to, and when they are being told to shut up and take their medicine.
John Strausbaugh is a former editor of New York Press, a regular contributor to The New York Times, and author/editor of several books of social and cultural commentary, including The Drug User: Documents 1840-1960 (coedited with Donald Blaise), Alone With the President, and Rock 'Til You Drop: The Decline From Rebellion to Nostalgia. His most recent, Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult and Imitation in American Popular Culture, was published by Tarcher/Penguin last year and will be reissued in paperback next fall.
The following emails were composed, sent and delivered in the past few days. They make, IMHO, a suitable suite to accompany Mr. Strausbaugh's articulo.
First a letter from me to Specter that I copied quite a few and which I did not expect him to answer. I was not incorrect in this expectation - although needless to say I would have been delighted - but as ignorant as Specter is, he is not stoned stupid like Moore.
From Bialy to Specter:
"I wonder if you are aware, Mr. Specter, that the horse with which you have yolked (or is it choked) yourself, and maybe along with it what once was one of the most sophisticated magazines going, is the very same person who is revealed in his true colors and in his own (nobody could write that stuff for him) redundant and highly stylized (for a mono .. that's espanol Juan) words, published here yesterday and already read by more than thousands.
Some apples huh Michael?
Saludos, y buen suerte......you did ask for it..and now by Jove, you're getting it. b.ali (to you)"
2. A long letter from Geiger to Specter (with a reply [3]). Geiger is amazing at getting people to write him completely self-revealing letters. The one that follows this could be a parody of the parody Specter "composed" for his magazine if it were not so painfully serious.
"Hello Michael, and hopefully you have a moment to read this email with due consideration.
I just read your piece "The Denialists".
It was emailed to me this morning by Dr. John P. Moore, who is taking credit for orchestrating your piece by having emailed to many in the Rethinking Aids movement, the following statement:
"I'm sure even a non-intellectual "retiree" without a university
affiliation can work out how this article came to be written........
Is this true, that this your article was "orchestrated" by HIV researcher, John P Moore, who rails against "the denialists"? The same John P. Moore who did the OpEd piece in the New York Times? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/opinion/04moore.html?ex=1307073600en=05ff84719adc117bei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss
I find this a bit difficult to believe, but surely an esteemed Cornell University HIV researcher, and speaker at the Toronto AIDS Conference would not lie about this, would he?
And if it is so, should your piece not be somwhat considered misleading "propaganda" from the researchers making their fortunes from this, otherwise perhaps to be known as AIDS Incorporated, what with the 100 billion spent with zero cured?
I will forward you a copy of his email to me directly following this email.
As for your article, which you titled "The Denialists".
On one hand, you spoke honestly about much that the dissident rethinkers, as they prefer to be called, have presented, and on the other hand, you call them, label them, and box them, right from the starting title, with the easily to be considered hate and negativity provoking word, "denialists". Is this not a bias from the word go?
To me, it is, unfortunately, a bit like calling black people niggers, jewish people kikes, or gay people faggots. Or am I mistaken on this?
I really cannot personally think of any other reason to use this term, as it is certainly inter related to terms such as "holocaust denier", etc, other than to show obvious preconceived bias and/or to promote feelings of negativity or distrust or hatred toward those who hold AIDS dissident beliefs.
It is alright, and I am sure this was not a conscious intention, and I forgive you, as I certainly understand how this word is unwittingly propagated, and easily absorbed into ones own verbage.
However, I must affirm to you that I believe the use of this word, is most unhelpful to anyones understanding of the issues, and which at this point describes hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions of people around the world, including many fine doctors and scientists and government officials, and other human beings of very high repute.
Briefly, a bit of my own background concerning this quite serious issue,
I myself had been thrown into this very issue by the event of my own partner telling me he was HIV positive on 9/11 2001, yes, the 9-11. As if that day was not traumatic enough!
At this point, with my own life threatened, I sought truth and information on this HIV-AIDS issue. I asked many valid questions from the AIDS establishment, and I got very poor and often misleading answers to my queries from so called experts. As I obtained more information, I found myself fully and firmly on the dissident side of the issue. As such, I also jumped in to bring forth the information I discovered, on various corruptions of the Orthodox scientists, as well as various information that directly refuted the commonly held belief that HIV was sexually transmitted-
1) The largest and longest US gov study by Nancy Padian of HIV transmission in the US showed ZERO transmissions in sero-opposite couples through sex),
2)That the tests were 99% accurate-(there are more than 65 conditions listed in medical and scientific journals that are proven to cause false positive results in ALL of the HIV tests),
3) That HIV was the cause of AIDS-(when I myself personally know about 20 people who have died, supposedly from AIDS, and ALL of them had either taken high dosage AZT when that was the only therapy from 87 to 95, OR were extremely self destructive drug addicts that had their own personal extreme emotional problems and death wishes).
Of course, there are thousands of pages of more information and studies, available to the interested, as to the viewpoints and evidences of the dissident scientists. You can find much of it at www.duesberg.com , http://www.rethinkingaids.com/, and many other sites.
The resistance, however, to looking at ANY of these obvious facts is, or at least was, shocking to me, as common sense would tell me that people would WANT to know these facts!
As such I sought to understand what motives people might have for not wanting to look at the dissident positions.
For many in the mass straight media, who previously had taken sides or had previously written on the position that HIV is the cause of AIDS, to confront that they may have been wrong can be a major blow to one's own ego, and most will not even consider this for a moment. If they are mistaken, it would be far too painful to admit to it.
Those who abuse drugs do not want to believe that their own behavior is causing health problems. The gay community does not want to look stupid for having panicked themselves into swallowing bull and toxic drugs, or to look like a bunch of addicts. Those treating the supposed condition do not want to believe that their science could possibly be wrong. Those researching the condition do not want to believe that their science might be misguided. It is also a major financial threat and liability threat for many as well. The gay rags make an awful lot of money selling advertising often 3 pages long for HIV drugs.
As far as your reported story, you did have some quite obvious unchecked and unverified facts, at least according to the very government of South Africa, the same government that threw off the racist bonds of apartheid. There are many educated people in the government of SA. They are not simply a bunch of uneducated niggers and savages, as might be construed in a perhaps rascist overtone in your story. Michael, I truly hope you are not a rascist.
One obvious fallacy is:
In your piece, you stated: "Nearly a thousand people there die of AIDS every day....."
In 2004, there were 46 million people living in South Africa, but only 3,590 died from "HIV-related disease, according to the South African's own health system database:
http://www.avert.org/safricastats.htm
Also, I am not sure that you are aware that tuberculosis, which is WELL KNOWN, and published in many scientific journals to cause false positive HIV tests, is more than 80% of the notifiable disease in South Africa, according to their own government health sites, and is also their biggest killer. Primarily it is hitting the poor ghettos where people have poor nutrition, poor hygiene, and poor unclean drinking water, as well as high stress high population densities. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that all of this causes and effects outbreaks of disease.
Also, in your piece, you mentioned the trial in Australia. I would like to bring to your attention that Robert Gallo, the assumed discoverer of HIV, had testified there two weeks ago as well. In his own testimony, he admitted that his original picture of HIV was "cellular contamination" that he blamed on French researcher Luc Montagnier, whom he shares the supposed discovery with.
He also admitted, right in the testimony, that he DID NOT find evidence of HIV in either Kaposis Sarcoma tumors and also did not find it in T-cells, which it is supposed to be killing.
He also admitted that he only found evidence of HIV in 40 percent of his samples from people with AIDS, and he also admitted that 40 percent was NOT enough to consider a virus the cause of a disease.
Furthermore, Professor Peter MacDonald, in charge of all HIV research in Australia, who had testified in Superior Court that "There is absolutely no doubt that HIV causes AIDS", was found by the court to have told Nobel Laureate, and AIDS Dissident Kari Mullis in a letter to him after his original testimony, the following statement: ""Overall I think I share with you some scepticism about the jump from scientific observation to a deduction that HIV transmission and pathogenesis is set in stone and becomes a legitimate basis for criminal prosecution".
Nobelist Mullis immediately forwarded the email to the defence attorney, and from there to the court where it was presented to the judge and created quite a quandary.
Needless to say, he was hauled back into court 3 days ago to explain this discrepancy to the Superior Court Judge, John Sulan. Why did he tell the court there is no doubt, and afterwards send an email where he certainly expressed a serious doubt?
I doubt this went over well with the judge! I personally expect the judge to find the scientific evidence lacking in the next week or two, but we will soon see. You can find the transcripts at www.aras.ab.ca
If you are at all interested in "The Denialist Scientists and Doctors" as you have called them, I would be more than happy to share with you their emails, as I myself have found all of them to be some of the most decent and integrous people that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. They are almost always more than willing to answer any and everyones honest questions that are put to them with due respect.
Michael, I thank you for this moment of your time, and you are welcome to email me back, and I hope you do. I am also forwarding this email to a few of the other dissidents, namely Peter Duesberg, Harvey Bialy, and HIV/AIDS journalist Celia Farber, and others, in case they wish to correspond their thoughts on the issue to you as well. Thanks much,
Michael"
3. Specter to Geiger:
"Thanks for your interest. I do not intend to respond to the letters you and so many of your colleagues in the denialist universe have written. But I do want to say this: No editor ever suggested to me that I write this (or any other AIDS) story . I have been thinking about this issue for twenty years, ever since I encountered Peter Duesberg at that AMFAR Forum in Washington.
Until recently I always felt, on balance, it is better to ignore you people than to give you publicity. But after Harper's inexplicably published a lengthy and irresponsible piece last year I realized I was wrong.
In any case, nobody from the AIDS research world suggested the story. Nor did an editor. It was my idea, my reporting and I am totally willing to let people think or say anything they want about it. Sincerely, Michael Specter, Staff Writer, The New Yorker"
4. Duesberg to a few friends:
I am just reading about us "denialists" in the New Yorker for the first time. It's really a very semi-solid piece with all these ad hominem stereotypes, "Duesberg and other denialists", "conspiracy", "Through force of will, Peter D essentially invented the AIDS dissident movements", "D's conviction that HIV does not...", "The 'poison' (anti-HIV drug) argument has been proved untrue in hundreds of studies...".
I really think, each of these second rate propaganda stereotypes are scientifically worthless opinions. Prime example, Fauci at the AmFar meeting convened in 1988, "in an effort to put D's theories to rest (rather than to analyze them)": "This is murder" - in sharp contrast to his leadership in prescribing DNA chain-terminators to hundred thousands of fellow Americans for having antibodies against (!) HIV.
It would take lots of "force of will" and "time" to lay out the factual basis for or rather against any of these prejudices, even at neutral forum, let alone make a case against them in a tendentious journal like the New Yorker - that wants evil minorities.
Further I predict that a journal that publishes an article like the "Denialists" would censor or reduce to a few words any scientific response, particularly when it comes from such eminently trashable intellectual minorities as AIDS denialists in our UNITED STATES - "the freest of all countries" (president G. Bush) - and would "balance" it by a politically correct answer from the eminently fundable (about $10 bn/year) US-HIV-AIDS establishment.
In sum, unless convinced otherwise, I prefer to let it go. Semper fidelis, Peter"
5. Farber to The New Yorker
"Rarely have I wanted a piece to be allowed to speak for itself more than this one, by Michael Specter. I understand he broke a 20 year vow of silence about Duesberg and "denialism," in order to "deal with" the effect of my "lengthy and irresponsible" article in Harper's, published one year ago. I will limit my comment to this: I find it amusing that the New Yorker should be reduced to serving as a really late, journalistic 'morning after pill' to Harper's."
Posted by: Letters from Bialy, Geiger, Specter, Duesberg and Farber | March 12, 2007 at 10:20 AM