Another excellent piece about HIV/AIDS denial.

On Science-Based Medicine, we strive to apply the light of science and reason on all manner of unscientific belief systems about medicine. For the most part, but by no means exclusively, we have concentrated on so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) because there is an active movement to infiltrate faith-based, rather than science-based, modalities into “conventional” medicine. Indeed, such efforts are well-financed, both by public and private organizations, and are alarmingly successful at insinuating postmodernist and pseudoscientific beliefs into academia to form an unholy new monster that has been termed by some as “quackademic medicine.”

So science is under heavy suspicion while CAM is given the revolutionary salute. Yee-ha.

However, one pseudoscientific belief system about medicine that we at SBM have perhaps not dealt with as much as we should is the belief that, contrary to the overwhelming scientific consensus built up over 25 years, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) does not cause Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)…Before I go on to do a case study of the tragic price of HIV/AIDS denialism, perhaps it is worthwhile to take a moment to discuss just what HIV/AIDS denialism is. It is not “skepticism” or “rethinking” any more than creationism is a “rethinking” or “skepticism” of evolution, although denialists like to try to claim the mantle of those labels. Seth Kalichman, author of the book Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy has written a good primer of the phenomenon…

Yes and he’s going to write about it for B&W. Put that on your calendars.

Indeed, denialism, specifically the denial of scientific medicine, tends to be at the heart of the quackademic medicine movement, just as the denial of evolution is at the heart of the anti-evolution movement known as “intelligent design” creationism. It is a more general phenomenon that involves a dogged clinging to pseudoscientific or pseudohistorical beliefs (creationists and antivaccine advocates are a good example of the former; 9/11 Truthers and Holocaust deniers are a good example of the latter) and the use of logical fallacies and conspiracy theories to bolster their world view.

Read the whole piece; it’s long and thorough and full of horrors, and impressive.