House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic

I'm a journalist who has spent some time investigating AIDS denialism and those who have been affected by it. This film is very dangerous, and will likely lead to many lost lives.

Since it would take too long here to debunk the various outrageous claims made in the film, let me address just two points it conveniently glosses over:

First, Christine Maggiore, the HIV+ activist who has avoided antiretroviral drugs with supposedly no ill consequences, is dead. She died of AIDS-related pneumonia, aged 52. Her daughter Eliza Jane, whose contraction of HIV was undoubtedly helped by Maggiore's refusal of antiretrovirals and breast feeding, also died of AIDS-related pneumonia, aged 3.

Second, Kim Marie Bannon, another of the film's HIV+ activists who have avoided antiretroviral drugs with supposedly no ill consequences, is presently residing in a care home with HIV encephalitis. She is dying of AIDS.

Why are these fairly important facts pushed to one side? Perhaps they got in the way of creating such an "objective" film.

Its like one of these "condoms do not prevent AIDS" or "teach the controversy" moments. The most selective reporting you will ever see.. Picking out the least credible and dishonest people out there who want to make a name for themselves and earn some money and cutting out awkward peaces of interviews with those rare experts in ti. Crackpot journalists, pseudo scientists, and most of all conspiracy theorists..

Exploiting poor African countries and its people, poorly qualified medical workers, those rare lucky individuals whose immune system successfully holds the virus at bay, etc.. Selecting out all these and all the possibly imaginable theories that could support his agenda..

Why is there no cure? What is that supposed to mean?... Why is there no cure for Alzheimers, or cancer? If your BS alarm didn't go off at least a hundred times, them I am sorry, but you are naive and gullible.

This Brent Leung is a criminal in my eyes.. I have seen references to this documentary on many sites now, which means people are actually believing this nonsense and it certainly means that there will indirectly be many lives lost because of this.

This guy didn't even spare the poor guy that went with his agenda in desperation... "This guy is taking HIV medicine" and a few seconds later "He died shortly after recording this video", therefore don't take your medicine or you will die...

Either homophobia is behind this, or some "christian family values", but certainly that deadly sort of inhumane capitalism and greed. Just because one is allowed to make money by selling lies and dangerous speculations, some lowlife will inevitably grab the opportunity..

Its the most dishonest thing you will see, and all because this virus is really complicated and resilient, more than anything we previously encountered. It mutates so quickly that there are virtually millions of different strains out there.. Of course we had a lot of problems detecting and fighting it and of course scientists want as much money as they can get for fighting it. Of course you will find people that were misdiagnosed, etc, etc.

Eh, it just makes me angry. This Brent Leung made a career and a lot of money out of this, while those crackpot wannabe "scientists" and "journalists" in it got a little attention and opened doors into conspiracy theory world..They will never see or hear about those ones that will die as a result of this documentary.

H.L. Mencken wrote: "What begins as a guess--or, perhaps, not infrequently, as a downright and deliberate lie--ends as a fact and is embalmed in the history books." Interviewing all the major players in the HIV-AIDS debate over the past 25 years--orthodox and dissidents alike--and filmed and edited with superb production values, this first documentary by Brent Leung explores the genesis of a bad guess, and quite possibly a deliberate lie. It reveals anomalies from the single pathogen theory of AIDS, which look more and more like evidence against a rush-to-judgment in 1984 (appropriate year), when the Reagan Administration embraced and politicized junk science in an effort to quiet criticism of its "insensitivity" to gay men. Of course, we gay men immediately embraced the single pathogen theory also, because it made AIDS "everybody's disease," and shoved under the carpet all the questions about the immuno-suppressive nature of: (1) unprecedented exchange of old pathogens in incestuous urban gay enclaves; (2) unprecedented ingestion of toxins in the form of both legal and illegal drugs, which fueled the party lifestyle of the sexual revolution; and (3) the condition in which gay men found ourselves as a hated minority as the religious right reared its ugly head. What Brent Leung's film really does is to scream: "Let's take another look at this junk science theory!" Yes, the orthodox get some of their quotes taken slightly out of context--the limitations of a 90-minute film covering a huge amount of ground--but when you put them in context, they present an even worse case for their conclusion that a mysterious little retroviral bug is the single cause of multi-factorial immune deficiency. (Just take a look at the YouTube full interview with Montagnier, in which he says our own natural immune systems can rid us of the mysterious HIV within just a few weeks--completely undermining the "once-you-get-it-you-always-have-it orthodoxy.) Many of us have researched and written on this subject (my own writing can be found at www.terrymichael.net, "Special Report on HIV-AIDS" linked at my home page), but our words have been confined to the internet. Leung's film brings to a theater near you the serious debate the HIV-AIDS Industrial Complex has denied us for 25 years. See it, and be amazed that most of what you thought about HIV-AIDS is, as Mencken would say, a downright and deliberate lie, by an establishment that increasingly resembles a religious cult, more than it practices rational science.

This film can save your life. This film can save you relationships. This film can educate you. This film can make you laugh. This film will make you cry. The best documentary I have ever seen.

I went into this film thinking the notion it investigates were crazy. Now I understand why people are angry about the film. It is not the message, but the danger of the message to the the scientists who have staked their entire career, awards, and grants on an unproved theory.

What is the unproven theory? the existence of HIV. The notion that drugs help when they kill or keep you sick.

WATCH THIS FILM. GET EDUCATED. CHANGE THE WORLD

On the plus side, it's a wonderful demonstration of how compelling blatantly incorrect theories can be, using misquoted experts and ignoring well-known contradictions.

In addition to the glaring omissions that JC from the UK pointed out here on 3 March 2010, many more can be found on Wikipedia, which denialists shockingly don't seem to be keen on "correcting": See WikiPedia's "AIDS_denialism" and "Misconceptions_about_HIV_and_AIDS".

For example, the film points to the theory that Poppers were the root cause of Kaposi's Sarcoma in the original US gay community, but those Wikipedia pages point to real studies that conclusively disprove that theory. The film does not mention this.

Also, two of the interviewed experts (Constantine and Weiss) explain how they were completely misquoted and misrepresented: See google for "constantine and weiss pinpoint misrepresentations"

The idea of inaccurate HIV testing seemed to play a large role in the film, even though studies show it is 99.9% accurate. (I'm not sure if this includes PCR tests, which perhaps are 100% conclusive?) The film does not mention this.

Also, the film refers to Padian's study on HIV transmission, but completely misrepresents it, as she herself explains: (See: "HIV heterosexual transmission and the Padian paper myth". Basically, she says the study was specifically analyzing safe-sex interventions (condom usage in couples), and simply showed the effectiveness of condoms, not the non-transmissibility of the virus. The film deceptively hides this piece of information.)

The film is highly deceptive, and outright false on most of it's critical points. But it was an entertaining and compelling narrative while it lasted.