Is that your final answer?

Orac and others have been all over the death of AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore, so I won't try to re-invent that particular wheel. I'll just give you a brief summary. Maggiore was a young woman who became infected with HIV and then had the very bad fortune to meet wacko pseudo-scientist Peter Duesberg, who persuaded her that HIV does not cause AIDS but antiretroviral drugs do. She refused to take AZT to prevent transmission of the virus to her baby Elizabeth, who subsequently died of AIDS at the age of 3, although Maggiore claimed the cause was something else. She went on to become a crusader against antiretroviral drugs and personally contributed to the deluding of South African president Thabo Mbeki and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Maggiore herself has now died, apparently of AIDS-related pneumonia although, as one who walks in the light of reason, I won't jump to any definite conclusion about that unless we get more evidence -- which her family is withholding, of course.

I will use this as the occasion for what was going to be my next post anyway. As I have written previously, it is understandable that the experience with AZT monotherapy caused some people to doubt the standard HIV story. However, I simply do not see how anyone can remain in denial following the introduction of so-called Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), in which protease inhibitors and other classes of drugs are used in conjunction with AZT-like drugs.

When these regimens were introduced in the late 1990s, the results were absolutely incontrovertible. People all over the country who were days or hours from death, some who had been administered last rites, suddenly, seemingly miraculously, rose up and were healed. This was called the Lazarus Syndrome, and I have personally spoken with many people who experienced it for themselves, people who has ordered their lives around preparing for death and suddenly had to figure out how to live again. Until then, AIDS had been all about dying, and the institutions that grew up around the epidemic were hospices, and workshops about how to face the end, and grotesque financial instruments whereby people with AIDS would collect payments from people who wanted to gamble on their date of death.

With the introduction of HAART, the community had to completely reinvent itself around problems of living. The hospices went out of business, to be replaced by living centers, medication adherence counselors, and Positive Prevention programs to help people avoid being reinfected or transmitting the virus to others. The problem of paying for HAART therapy became a major focus of HIV-related activism. Face it Duesberg: people stopped getting AIDS, and they stopped dying, when they started taking the drugs. QED. End of story. Everything else the denialists say is equally bullshit. Yes, the virus is present in the blood and elsewhere of people who test positive for HIV antibodies, in virtually 100% of cases. Yes, the level of virus particles in the blood correlates strongly with progression of HIV disease. Yes, people who take the drugs faithfully have suppressed viral loads and they don't get AIDS. People who don't take the drugs do get AIDS. The sun rises in the east.

So the question is why this weird movement persists. Partly it's just that people get dug in to a position and they can't face up to their responsibility for error. To admit that you have contributed to mass slaughter is undoubtedly difficult. But they also attract followers who don't share that initial responsibility, but who somehow find the dissent appealing, as a symbol of resistance to authority, perhaps, or personal distinction. Whatever the psychology, it's extraordinarily frustrating -- quite similar to the thimerosal thing, and broader anti-vaccination activism. Some things we just know.