AIDS Denialism... Yes, it still exists... Yes, it is almost 2010

One month from now it will be 2010. This is twenty nine years after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) first recognized AIDS as a new deadly disease, the cause of which would go unknown for several more years until a virus was discovered that was present in all AIDS patients and seemed to be attacking the immune system itself. This was named the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV. Although no vaccine or cure has ever been invented, antiretroviral medication has been developed which slows the viruses propagation throughout the immune system and can allow for an extended period of asymptomatic life for victims of the disease. Due to the lack of a vaccine, the most important facet of the fight against AIDS has historically been prevention - informing the public of what we all can do to avoid contracting or spreading the virus.

Understandably, the initial claim that AIDS was caused by HIV was placed under scrutiny by legitimate scientists - some who not only scrutinized, but disagreed entirely - but as time went on and increasing scientific evidence emerged proving the causality of HIV, most of the these arguments began to die off. But they did not disappear entirely.

Even today, there exist groups of people who claim that HIV does not cause AIDS, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. And while this belief may be grouped in with other such 'conspiracies' that populate the landscape of pseudoscience - Holocaust deniers, Moon landing conspiracy theorists - this belief is not merely an offensive or controversial view of the past but a very contemporary and very dangerous stance. The most obvious and current example of the kind of effect such a view can have on society is the way in which AIDS statistics have changed in South Africa over the course of Thabo Mtheki's rule. Until he was finally removed from Presidency in 2008, the official stance in South Africa was that immunodeficiency could be caused by many factors, and that the best treatment for AIDS was a diet of garlic, beetroot and lemon juice. The treatment's efficacy is clear: 10% of all AIDS victims live in South Africa, meaning that over 12% of its citizens are infected.

Although it is important to acknowledge that this policy ended in 2008, the effects of HIV/AIDS denialism have certainly not. The most pressing complication to take into account is the effect that deniers' claims have on the lay public - especially when one takes into account that these theories have been rejected by the scientific community. For this reason, denialist claims will not be published in scientific journals, but rather in books and on the internet, media that do not necessarily require the representation of complete evidence and fact, much less both sides of an issue. Through these methods, people who are uneducated about the true nature of AIDS and the effect that antiretrovirals actually have on victims of the disease can be driven to seek alternative, less effective (or entirely ineffective) treatments - or just not treat themselves at all, believing the disease to be psychological. Worse yet, some denialists claim that AIDS is actually caused by AIDS medication. And while people are allowed to make decisions regarding their own treatment, consider the effect this could have on others. People who do not believe their disease to be viral would be less careful about taking proven cautionary preventions, and could potentially spread their disease to others. Pregnant mothers who are not treated have a high chance of spreading AIDS to their children, who will never get the chance to decide how they will treat themselves.

How can this problem be addressed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialist
http://www.aidstruth.org/