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AIDS denialists
#1
AIDS denialists
We had a topic about Anti-Vaxxers so here is one about AIDS denialists. These are people who "think" that AIDS is not caused by a virus.

I can not think of a better example of an AIDS denialist than the ex South African president Thabo Mbeki who, because of his ignorance, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, maybe more.

He not only proclaimed that AIDS is not caused by the HIV retrovirus but that the alternative "cures" such as  cow urine are effective. Or another "cure" in SA is known as ubhejane which was invented not by the ex-trucker, Zeblon Gwala, himself but by his long-dead grandfather, who appeared to him in a dream and gave him instructions on how to produce two herbal stews that would cure AIDS. Needles to say Gwala was supported by prominent members of the Mbeki administration and he did a roaring trade.

Mbeki's stance on people who claimed that AIDS is caused by HIV was that there is a link between HIV and AIDS and that is a plot by the CIA, and that the medicines being offered to South Africa by the West might be designed not to counter HIV but for a far different purpose: harming innocent Africans.
In response to Mbeki's statements and conspiracy theories Conference was held in Durban where over five thousand relevant scientists, including eleven Nobel laureates, signed a statement that said how there is no doubt that HIV causes AIDS which Mbeki's administration called "elitist". After which someone created the notorious "The Castro Hlongwane Document" that said how number of prominent South Africans who'd died of AIDS had, rather, been poisoned by the antiretroviral drugs they'd been taking. Its primary claim was that AIDS is really a cluster of traditional African diseases exacerbated by poverty and malnutrition. That document also backfired at Mbeki and he had to moderate his stance.
But also there were some other important figures in South Africa that denied AIDS, like German vitamin seller Matthias Rath, who claims huge doses of his products can be substituted for antiretroviral drugs and who also has articles on his webpage with titles like "THE PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG CARTEL LAUNCHES WORLD WAR III TO PREVENT THE CONSTRUCTION OF A HEALTHY WORLD"
Needles to say Rath enjoyed the kind of market dominance in South Africa that the average corporation can only dream about.
The result of Mbeki’s policies are that in 1990 the rate of HIV infection in South Africa was approximately zero and in 2017 there is 7.2 million people with AIDS.


One other president who is an AIDS denialist is also from Africa and that is Yahya Jammeh who was president of Gambia until the last year. He was known by claiming his ancestors had revealed to him in a dream the true, nonviral cause of AIDS and a means of curing it, an herbal concoction comprising "a green herbal paste, a bitter yellow liquid and eating bananas". He then expelled Fadzai Gwaradzimba (member of UN) for criticizing him on his "cures".
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#2
RE: AIDS denialists
These fools were not limited to Africa, nor to people in position to profit from this delusion. A well-known atheist, the late Dorothy Murdock (better known as Acharya S, author of The Christ Conspiracy) was one.

I wish we understood what kind of brain damage leads to this shit and if there was a way to repair it.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
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#3
RE: AIDS denialists
Is this meant to start a discussion about something, or are you just venting?
[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
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#4
RE: AIDS denialists
(November 10, 2018 at 10:42 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: Is this meant to start a discussion about something, or are you just venting?

Well I just thought that if people had some other interesting informations about this like AFTT47 which I didn't know or maybe they had a brush with these kind of people in person. And maybe someone could tell me where this will all lead to? Is this something that is still a problem? Is it going to get bigger like global warming denialism? Someone must have an answer.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#5
RE: AIDS denialists
drich knows the cause and the cure, just ask him.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#6
RE: AIDS denialists
I hate people.
If The Flintstones have taught us anything, it's that pelicans can be used to mix cement.

-Homer Simpson
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#7
RE: AIDS denialists
I deny the existence of these denyers. Problem solved!
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#8
RE: AIDS denialists
It amazes me that ignorance is to intrinsic to our species. Refusal to accept facts must provide an advantage to genetic fitness. What a funny world that this could possibly be so!
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#9
RE: AIDS denialists
Just cause I say I don't have aids doesn't mean I'm an aids denialist.
Oh, wait a minute. Damn.




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#10
RE: AIDS denialists
(November 10, 2018 at 2:46 pm)Mermaid Wrote: I hate people.

Is this what being a skeptic is to you? A giant joke? If it is and you are planning to be cynical about it you are wasting your own time and ours as well.

Here is for instance a trailer for a documentary called "Death by Medicine" based on a book by the same name that claims how FDA is a criminal organization that is trying to kill people, that hospitals are places where people are tortured and not healed and that you have better chance of getting well by praying to Jesus than taking "FDA's medicine"





And if you think people don't take it for granted you are being cynical. Here is one example: The First Century Gospel church is run by the Reverend Nelson Ambrose Clark, who preached to his parishioners that they should not take medical help when needed but simply pray. He was known as saying "Our teaching is to trust Almighty God for everything in life: for health, for healing, for protection, for provisions, for avenging of wrongs."
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/201012...wAll=y&c=y

He relied heavily on this book I mentioned Death by Medicine (2010) by Gary Null and Martin Feldman as justification for his belief that people are better off with faith healing or just plain prayer. Although even earlier in 1991 nearly five hundred children at his church and the nearby Faith Tabernacle Congregation, whose views on medicine are similar, fell sick with measles, six of them dying.


So you see being a skeptic is no laughing matter. As such you are an activist or more precisely an adult among religious people that don't know how to think rationally. You have to be prepared to intervene when you find yourself in a situation where some religious person wants to leave his or her child to be cured by elves, jinns, virgin Mary, Jesus, angels and what not.
You may say "I don't know any such people" maybe you don't but maybe you get a call in 2 in the morning by some Christian or Muslim friend that has such friends and can't talk them out of not letting their kid be treated by medicine. Because religious people themselves can't talk out those religious people denying medicine since the talk would go like this
"You have to give your kid to be treated by science."
"Why should I since science was so wrong like with evolution and shape of the earth."
"Well yeah, that was wrong but this is not."
"Are you joking? It's all wrong. If one is wrong then all is wrong. Not let me pray to Jesus to heal my child."


So you see this is why we have topics like this one. So we can exchange data, experiences and when the time comes we are prepared.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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