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Nation v. Harper's

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 8:39 AM on March 3, 2006.


The Nation takes Harper's to task for publishing a 'crank' on HIV/AIDS...
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23 COMMENTS
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Harper's one-ups the IDers?

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Cross posted in PEEK and The Mix.

Update: The Columbia Journalism Review has weighed in on the controversy...

The twists and turns of the magazine industry. One minute you're the toast of the progressive blogs for Lewis Lapham's impeachment plea... the next you're taken to task by the Nation for publishing "a stunning 15-page article by well-known AIDS denialist Celia Farber (formerly of Spin magazine) that extensively repeats UC Berkeley virologist Peter Duesberg's discredited theory that HIV does not cause AIDS."

Richard Kim lists the Duesberg claims parroted by Farber. My personal favorite: "75 percent of AIDS cases in the West can be attributed to drug toxicity. If toxic AIDS therapies were discontinued...thousands of lives could be saved virtually overnight."

Stupid stupid doctors.

Kim posts this letter from Gregg Gonsalves of Gay Men's Health Crisis:

Gregg Gonsalves: "Dear Editors, I have been a long-time Harper's Magazine reader. I am sorry that the March 2006 issue is the very last that I will read.
With Celia Farber's article "Out of Control, AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science," your magazine has managed to destroy its 156 year-old reputation in 15 pages.
...
If Harpers was some fringe publication or supermarket tabloid then we could all laugh at Farber's weird conspiracy theories and pseudo-science. The sad thing is that unlike the hoaxes perpetuated on the New Republic by Stephen Glass several years ago, Ms. Farber's reputation as a crank is widespread. Thus, it seems that your editors, after careful research and despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, decided that Ms. Farber was a serious journalist with a real story to be told.
If you choose to report falsehoods as truths when it comes to HIV/AIDS, how can I trust the veracity of the rest of what appears in your pages?
Yours truly,
Gregg Gonsalves
Dylan Stableford wades into the comments to find this gem:
I am always sympathetic to skeptics and contrarians, so I was curious to read Celia Farber's HIV articles.

In 1987, when I subscribed to Spin.
(The Notion, Fishbowl)

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Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.


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Mr. Gerald Sutliff
[Report this comment]
Posted by: GeraldM on Mar 3, 2006 10:46 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Calling Dr. Duesberg a "denialist" does no one any good. Duesberg is a serious person and should paid more attention to; he's a Nobel winner for his research on retro viruses. That doesn't make him right but still any scientest who gets his work "defunded" because of speaking his mind is entitled to respect, even if he's crazy.

Politics and AIDs should be seperated, but aren't.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Mr. Gerald Sutliff Posted by: Evan Derkacz
» RE: Mr. Gerald Sutliff Posted by: nathangeffen
Why not?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: AlanSmithee on Mar 3, 2006 12:17 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Nation has to have something to do in between bouts of ABB hysteria. Might as well snipe at the competition.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Why not? Posted by: Evan Derkacz
» RE: Why not? Posted by: CounterCorp
» RE: Why not? Posted by: Evan Derkacz
» RE: Why not? Posted by: CounterCorp
» RE: Why not? Posted by: AlanSmithee
And Your Point Is ?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: kww355 on Mar 4, 2006 5:43 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What good does it do for the Democrats to speak out when they are just going to be steamrollered by the Republicans? I'm sure they're demoralized just like the rest of us right ( i.e. correct ) thinking people.

It's not that I'm defending the Dems, but the plain fact is that they're outnumbered. You can only whip a dog so much til he quits barking.

I was furious the Dems didn't at least mount a filibuster against Alito until I accepted they couldn't overcome the vote.And the Bushian Ministers of Propaganda would once more tar them with the brush of obstructionism.

Until the government and the people recover from their collective madness, "barking" will do no good.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» What planet are you from? Posted by: vitocaputo
» RE: What planet are you from? Posted by: vitocaputo
Did you READ it?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: oregoncharles on Mar 4, 2006 10:25 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't think you did. The article is densely factual and, frankly, devastating. At the very least, she demonstrates that AIDs research is deeply corrupted by drug company money and government incompetence. Those are both left-wing issues that belong in Harper's. She also raises some important questions about the HIV hypothesis. Have those questions been answered? Not as far as I know, nor you, either.
Both your post and the Nation's comment completely beg the question of whether the HIV hypothesis has been well established. Where's the evidence? Not in your post, which is a masterpiece of ignorance.
The article proposes at least two logical tests of the hypothesis. One, comparing the death rates of hemophiliacs with & without HIV infection, would be retrospective, avoiding the ethical problems of controlled studies (i.e., who doesn't get treated?), and relatively cheap. If that study hasn't been done, it's because the funders are afraid of the answer.
I'll make a bet with you: Harper's checked on the claims in that article, but you didn't, and neither did The Nation. Did you even read it? It's not easy reading, but I recommend it.
Harper's deserves credit for guts in raising the issue.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Did you READ it? Posted by: oregoncharles
» RE: Did you READ it? Posted by: nathangeffen
Thomas Vincze
[Report this comment]
Posted by: tomvincze on Mar 4, 2006 1:11 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Evan,

You should do more research into the arguments Dr. Duesberg makes before making ad hominen attacks. Deusberg is a brilliant scientist who has been steadfast in his adherence to logic when it comes to the HIV=AIDS hypothesis. When you can't argue the facts throw dirt.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Thomas Vincze Posted by: Jesse
» RE: Thomas Vincze Posted by: tomvincze
Detailed point-by-point rebuttal of Farber
[Report this comment]
Posted by: nathangeffen on Mar 6, 2006 4:12 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A detailed point-by-point rebuttal of Farber's article in the Harper's March 2006 issue is available at:
http://www.tac.org.za/Documents/ErrorsInFarberArticle.pdf

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

UPDATE
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Evan Derkacz on Mar 10, 2006 1:16 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Columbia Journalism Review has weighed in on the controversy...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Too bad if Harper's won't be this brave again anytime soon
[Report this comment]
Posted by: ohleslie on Mar 14, 2006 8:21 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We have to admire Harper's courage for printing the article Celia Farber wrote exposing the dangerous politics around AIDS, but also notice Harper's new editor, Mr. Hodge, shamefully disowning the article and saying of course Farber doesn't espouse Peter Duesberg's views, only reports them, when that's not true. Celia Farber has been on this beat for some time. Probably Mr. Hodge has no idea that unorthodoxy in the area of medical science and politics is a feasible position. We have all been so gulled by the medical/pharma establishment into staying quiet and doing as doctor orders that questioning it has become important journalism. The questions Duesberg has about the AIDS/HIV hypothesis are questions we all need to ask. Like the cholesterol myths and hormone replacement, and other frauds in medicine that have been exposed or are yet to be, AIDS/HIV is a sacred cow. In Germany, where Peter Duesberg was able to work and develop his also controversial and unorthodox theories abut cancer (which are being accepted as his AIDS theories were not, just because it's an idea whose time may have come,) there are others who understand AIDS to be unrelated to HIV and also unrelated to immune deficiency. This is science and not akin to denying global warming or evolution. Anbody who thinks medicine is all fair and unbiased science should remember the difficulty the scientist who proved ulcers are caused by a pathogen had getting his work recognized: he had to give himself the disease to prove h. pylori causes ulcers, and then he had to schedule a speech on another subject and read his ulcer paper without authorization or none of us would know about it today. Imagine the uproar! But he has a Nobel prize now. No doubt Duesberg will have a Nobel prize for his work, even if does upset applecarts everywhere. People who wonder about this should read what Duesberg and others have written. The Internet makes that possible.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

SS
[Report this comment]
Posted by: SSaranam on May 9, 2006 4:49 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is no more than propaganda, irrespective of whether it is true or false. This blog entry has zero substantive value. Duesberg may be wrong, but you wouldn't know why from this blog. It just tells you he's wrong, fails at it's attempt at humor, and then all but asks you to go back to sleep. I don't see the point to it. What's the point of writing if we end up defending our sense of identity? I highly doubt this writer can tell you with precision (science is concerned with precise knowledge) why Duesberg is wrong. And he certainly cannot tell you why Duesberg himself feels he is right. Or he won't, which results in the same tripe. As Milton says, if you believe in something that happens to be true, but you do not know why it is true, your belief is heresy. This blog is the equivalent of heresy against the spirit of science -- a spirit that requires great sacrifice in ego, but one well worth embodying. And if you don't feel you can go into the details of retroviruses on your blog, then write on whatever your knowledge encompasses. I'm sure you can imagine what you look like in the eyes of a scientist -- one who sacrifices decades in painstaking research -- when you don't exemplify such common courtesy.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]