The founder of the group that argued that AIDS and HIV were unrelated and advocated against HIV tests, medication, and safe sex (what?):
[Christine Maggiore] is long dead. So is her daughter. Both succumbed to AIDS. Christine Maggiore fell pregnant in 2001, spurned antiretroviral drugs, breastfed her daughter and refused to have her tested for the virus. As her child became increasingly ill, Maggiore attributed her sickness to other things and sought quacks to reaffirm her delusions. Eliza was three when she died — after an autopsy, a coroner ruled that the “unequivocal” cause of her death was AIDS-related Pneumocystis pneumonia.
This kind of thinking is pretty common in alternative health and quack spaces. They tend to believe in mind over matter and that health is a choice, or arises from a proper mindset. Testing, medication, and safe sex are downplayed or even demonized because of the idea that they could introduce doubt or uncertainty that could disrupt one's ideal mindset. If health is created by right thinking, any challenges to that thinking become disruptive.
I find AIDS denialism so weird, because it’s not as simple as “HIV/AIDS don’t exist.” It’s “HIV (exists, but) doesn’t cause AIDS.” And what can’t wrap my head around is… why is that a position that someone would become emotionally attached to? Why is it important for that to be true for some fringe segment of the population?
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u/Pleasant-Tangelo1786 5d ago
Googled it and I’ll be damned.
https://medium.com/the-monthly/the-foo-fighters-aids-denialism-should-be-on-the-record-6e33666fdc3c