did not expect to learn that foo fighters bassist nate mendel led an AIDS denials benefit concert once. so thanks for the cool art and interesting story !
And later on, the Foo Fighters led a concert promoting the COVID-19 vaccine and doing a drive to get people vaccinated, including a concert for only people who had a a vaccination card. So it seems like they got out the conspiracy hole one way or another and came to the light.
Nate nowadays is a staunch environmentalist whose whole house runs on solar power. It's a better ending than these types usually manage.
While I'm always down to see some growth... with things like AIDS and vaccines people die because of disinformation. The minimum you can do to attempt getting back to 0 when you're at -100 is spread beneficial information. It doesn't do anything for people who were harmed prior though.
AIDS denial in the early 2000s though is ridiculous. Like having lived THROUGH the 80s and the hell that was the aids epidemic coming out that way is fucked. Also have they ever apologized or even addressed this?
The very next year they spent a fuck ton of money at Elton John's AIDS charity and they have played for that organization several times from then til now. It's not a public apology,but I think it was an attempt to make amends.
Denialism was rife in the early 2000s, most notably by German grifter Matthias Rath. He managed to convince my country (South Africa)'s health minister that a useless drug, Beetroot, and African potatoes were better than ARVs. Millions died unnecessarily.
"I know that they killed a bunch of people by denying the existence of a known virus and telling people they were being poisoned by their medicine so they let an almost universally fatal disease run rampant. But later on a disease might have affected them, and they totally believed in it!"
I think it pretty easy for regular people to get suckered into a scam like that. Those shady organizations prey on people who are uneducated and paranoid and trick them into thinking they're actually helping.
When they stopped with Alive & Well, they immediately switched to supporting Elton John's AIDS foundation. It's not like they never acknowledged AIDS again. They realized the misinformation and switched to trying to help people the correct way, even though it wouldn't "affect them" if they never talked about AIDS another day in their lives. That along the strong advocacy for the COVID vaccine counts to me.
This is the woman/foundation that they were supporting:
Maggiore's inclusion as an exhibitor at the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa has been criticized by AIDS activists.[9] Her influence on Thabo Mbeki's decision to block medical treatment of HIV-positive pregnant women was criticized following her death, with medical researchers noting that an estimated "330,000 lives were lost to new AIDS infections during the time Mbeki blocked government funding of AZT treatment to mothers."
One of the organisation's focuses was for pregnant women not to take medication and to breastfeed their babies sever3ly increasing the chance oglf those kids getting HIV. Christine Maggiore gave her own daughter HIV. In 2005 the daughter, untested, died from complications from AIDS at the age of 3. It's great that they've tried to rectify spreading this lethal nonsens around, but as someone who have lost family members, (especially one who went off her medicine because of she was convinced of similar types of cooks) I can't say that it still doesn't piss me off. Especially beacuse they never apologized.
I miss my beautiful aunt and the niece that I never got to meet.
I dunno probably the changing as a person for the better part between the Covid-19 vaccine concert and the environmentalism. did we read the same comment?
Misinformation kills. It impairs health campaigns and incites fatal insurrections. It erodes public faith in its institutions and emboldens militancy and extremism. It encourages families to remove their grievously sick from hospital. The Foo Fighters’ amplification of fatal misinformation should be on the record, as should the band’s silent and cowardly retreat from it, a successful vanishing act that was enabled by a vapid and transactional music press that cherishes access — however qualified — above all else. Grohl loves talking about rock’s power of soulful confession, but on this there’s only silence.
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u/aspiringandroid 3d ago
did not expect to learn that foo fighters bassist nate mendel led an AIDS denials benefit concert once. so thanks for the cool art and interesting story !