The Other Side of AIDS

The Other Side of AIDS is a 2004 documentary film by Robin Scovill. Through interviews with prominent AIDS denialists and HIVpositive people who have refused antiHIV 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. The film was reviewed in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter in 2004, and received additional attention in 2005, when Scovills threeyearold daughter died of untreated AIDS.

The interviewees in The Other Side of AIDS include Peter Duesberg, a professor whose stock in the scientific community declined sharply once he began secondguessing the role of HIV in AIDS, and Christine Maggiore, whose organisation militates against HIV drug treatments. Variety notes that Maggiore is the wife of the directorproducer, a fact the film omits. In addition to these two prominent AIDS denialists, the documentary features several HIVpositive people who have refused antiHIV medications. Along with Maggiore, they blame AIDS deaths in part on negative thinking by victims, a fatalism they say is encouraged by support groups. Several also blame AIDS on the gay lifestyle.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. 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. AIDS Researcher Julio Montaner, interviewed around the films Vancouver premiere, said that such emotion comes from fear for patients who may take the films arguments seriously The success of the drugs depends to a high degree on the commitment of the patient to take the medication properly. ........

Source: Wikipedia