The Other Side of AIDS
Encyclopedia
The Other Side of AIDS is a 2004 documentary 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
. 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.
The Other Side of AIDS was shown at the AFI
Los Angeles International Film Festival in 2004, where it received special mention in the International Documentary category. The film had its international premiere at the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival
, and also played at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
in Argentina
.
, 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 organisation
"militates against HIV drug treatments." 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. 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 Montanner, 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."
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. In 2008, Maggiore herself died at the age of 52 after a protracted bout of pneumonia, with several other AIDS-related illnesses.
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.
and, briefly, in The Hollywood Reporter
.
Variety admired the "explosively controversial docu" for "cannily" 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."
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".
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
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
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
is not the cause of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
and that HIV treatments are harmful, conclusions which are rejected by medical and scientific consensus
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
. The film was reviewed in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
and The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
in 2004, and received additional attention in 2005, when Scovill's three-year-old daughter died of untreated AIDS.
The Other Side of AIDS was shown at the AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Los Angeles International Film Festival in 2004, where it received special mention in the International Documentary category. The film had its international premiere at the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival
Vancouver International Film Festival
The Vancouver International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for two weeks in late September and early October...
, and also played at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
The Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente is an international festival of independent films organized each year in the month of April, in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.The festival is managed by the Ministerio de Cultura del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, it is not...
in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
Background and content
The interviewees in The Other Side of AIDS include Peter DuesbergPeter Duesberg
Peter H. Duesberg is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley...
, a professor "whose stock in the scientific community declined sharply once he began second-guessing the role of HIV" in AIDS, and Christine Maggiore
Christine Maggiore
Christine Joy Maggiore was an HIV-positive activist who promoted the view that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. She was the founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization which questions the link between HIV and AIDS and encourages HIV-positive pregnant women to avoid anti-HIV medication...
, whose organisation
Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives
Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives is a 501 non-profit organization of AIDS denialists...
"militates against HIV drug treatments." 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. 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 Montanner, 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."
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. In 2008, Maggiore herself died at the age of 52 after a protracted bout of pneumonia, with several other AIDS-related illnesses.
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.
Critical reception
The Other Side of AIDS was reviewed in VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
and, briefly, in The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
.
Variety admired the "explosively controversial docu" for "cannily" 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."
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".
See also
- AIDS denialism
- House of NumbersHouse of NumbersHouse of Numbers is a controversial 2009 documentary film about human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome produced and directed by Brent Leung. Leung describes the film as an objective examination of the idea that HIV causes AIDS...
- Christine MaggioreChristine MaggioreChristine Joy Maggiore was an HIV-positive activist who promoted the view that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. She was the founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization which questions the link between HIV and AIDS and encourages HIV-positive pregnant women to avoid anti-HIV medication...
- Eliza Jane ScovillEliza Jane ScovillEliza Jane Scovill was the daughter of AIDS denialist, the late Christine Maggiore, an HIV-positive activist who publicly questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, and supported HIV-positive pregnant women who want to avoid taking anti-HIV medication...
- Peter DuesbergPeter DuesbergPeter H. Duesberg is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley...
- Duesberg hypothesisDuesberg hypothesisThe Duesberg hypothesis is the claim, associated with University of California, Berkeley professor Peter Duesberg, that various non-infectious factors such as recreational and pharmaceutical drug use are the cause of AIDS, and that HIV is merely a harmless passenger virus...