Christine Maggiore Is Finally Dead

As (medical) Doctor Ben Goldacre less gleefully reports, the most famous AIDs denier of them all has finally succumbed to HIV. The author of the disgracefully titled, "What if everything you thought you knew about Aids was wrong?" has been nailed by the virus that fucked up her immune system until there was nothing left to fight an infection which finally killed her.

She was 52.

The US media loved her because she promoted an idea that went against science, medicine and common sense and, for a while, appeared to survive despite refusing anti-retrovirals which could have prolonged her life.

Worse though, when pregnant she refused the ARVs despite the evidence that the reduce the risk of maternal transmission of HIV to the foetus and breast fed her children, refusing them HIV tests.

Her daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, died three years ago from a similar pnuemonia to that which killed Maggiore.

As Dr. Goldacre writes:

"She set up successful campaigning organisations and counselled HIV-positive pregnant women on how to avoid pressure from medics to use azidothymidine (AZT) during pregnancy to prevent maternal transmission of the virus. She appeared on the cover of Mothering magazine, with a “No AZT” sign painted on her pregnant tummy."

Most embarrassing of all, her fellow denier Prof. Peter Duesberg (University of California), managed to take in Neville Hodgkinson of the Sunday Times - an otherwise respectable paper. Nature described the Times' coverage as “seriously mistaken” and “probably disastrous”.

Fuck you Duesberg and fuck you Maggiore. I have family and friends lost to this virus.

Bad science kills people - the blood of millions is on your hands.

UPDATE: 7 Jan 2009

Seth C. Kalichman, Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Connecticut has written a book (also mentioned in his comment below) which I am happy to link to here: www.springer.com and priced at £13.99 it's due out in March this year.

Unlike psuedo-scientists, Seth is donating his royalties from sales to buy AIDS medications in Africa. Why Africa? Because America can afford to pay its own way and Africa can't - and it's worse because the bloody Catholic church is still teaching people there that it's "God's will" for them to have sex without condoms; compounding the problem, African men are just as bloody minded and won't wear them either.

Where I will disagree with Seth is (although this might not be entirely disagreeing) is in Maggiore's choice to refuse ARVs while pregnant and her decision to breast feed despite medical advice and all the evidence that her child would suffer harm.

While Maggiore was entirely within her rights to refuse treatment for herself, Eliza Jane had no choice in the matter and had a terribly short life as as result.

The pro-Maggiore brigade are out in force, too. I found this piece of "news" rather interesting:

"Pneumonia doesn't appear to harm HIV-positive patients any more than those without HIV, according to a new international study conducted in part by the University of Alberta. There was also negligible difference in the mortality rate; total deaths among the HIV patients was 3.5 per cent (two of 58 patients), and 4.8 per cent (seven of 174) among the HIV-negative patients."

So from these results, it seems that you're more likely to die from Pneumonia if you're HIV positive. Smelling the sweet scent of denier-bullshit, I did some digging (OK, googling) and discovered that it's the pneumocystic form of pneumonia - not the bacterial form - that occurs most frequently in AIDs patients (indeed, occurrence is often an early indicator of HIV infection!)

The research cited in that article was interesting, but essentially meaningless to the case in point. Bacterial pneumonia is entirely different from the fungal pneumocystic variety - which is so common it's estimated that 75% of children are exposed to (and immune to it) by the age of four.

It killed Maggiore's daughter before her fourth birthday.

Like Autism denier, Jenny McCarthy, Christine Maggiore was both ill-informed, attractive and charismatic. It's a dangerous combination but combined with an apathetic, story-oriented and hungry media is lethal.

Measles Back: Quick, Vaccinate!

Measles in the UK has reached a peak of over 1000 cases in the last 13 years. The problem in Cheshire is so bad that the local health authority has ordered mass vaccination of local children.

While most children recover, about 1 in 10 will require hospital treatment and as I've pointed out in this column previously, some will suffer brain damage or even die.

Are you listening Jenny "I know better" McCarthy? Are you listening Tony "I'm not saying" Blair? How about you, Dr. Andrew "scaremongering" Wakefield?

Will the Daily Mail apologise and admit the years of its spent promoting the insidious, unproven bullshit about MMR where all a mistake?

Will they fuck!

MMR is generally safe: as safe as any other vaccine - and probably safer than many. All vaccines have some risks, but you have to balance that against the very real risk of death from measles or problems mumps and rubella will cause to adults in years to come.

Vaccination saves lives as much as MMR doesn't cause autism (or IBS). It's simple: your children can't make the choice so it's your responsibililty. If they die from measles related disease, their blood is on the hands of those who refused the vaccination and those who promoted the lies against it.

Jenny McCarthy is pretty. Stupid

McCarthy is pretty and full of a sense of her own self-worth - and that's a problem.

Jenny believes in god (oh shit!) and she further believes that autism can be caused by the MMR vaccine (double-shit with ice-cream!) and further to that it can be cured (FUCK NO!)

But only if you make a pact with the almighty, according to Jen!

As a high-functioning Asperger's sufferer who didn't receive an MMR jab (because it wasn't invented then) I can honestly say I'm sick of "famous" people who try to lord it over the rest of us with ideas based on junk science that has been roundly shot down in flames: many, many times.

Yet still papers (read: "rags") like the UK's Daily Mail - one of the most pernicious spreaders of bullshit dressed up as serious journalism - still refuse to admit that Dr. Andrew Wakefield was a twat. His entirely flawed research (on the say-so of a few concerned patients) was motivated by greed and the whole thing is a crock.

Children die of measles every time there is an outbreak, yet more will go blind, deaf and suffer varying degrees of brain damage and mumps is fucking nasty - particularly in adult men; rubella causes serious defects in unborn children.

But Jenny "I Know Better Because I Is Famous" McCarthy won't be dissuaded.

I'm truly sorry to learn that her child is affected; but if he is truly affected by autism there isn't a proper doctor on the planet who can cure it. You can live with high-functioning Aspergers and milder forms of autism because it's a spectrum. It goes all the way from light grey where I exist through to the blackest depth of ... well, whatever it is that goes on inside the minds of those seriously affected. It's a very wide chasm between mild and serious autism; rather like stubbing your toe to having every bone in your body crushed.

Jenny won't accept that - even if some poor (educated) person tries to tell her she won't listen.

www.stopjenny.com

I just wish Andrew Wakefield would grow a pair and admit he fucked up. Maybe then this would show some signs of going away so we can get on with having normal(ish) lives and the parents/carers of sufferers wouldn't have to cling to an artificial hope.

But the damage is already done. Wakefield and those who follow him have blood on their hands; and the "wake" will continue to rattle on through generations as parents refuse a life-saving inoculation and their children suffer as a result.