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Celia Farber, the author of the March 2006 Harper's Magazine article attacking HIV clinical research, misrepresents herself to the popular media as a legitimate journalist and science writer, interested only in doggedly covering a good story. She is in fact an AIDS "dissident" who has been publicizing and extolling the claims of AIDS denialists and attacking scientific research on HIV/AIDS since the late 1980s. Farber has signed the two defining petitions of HIV denialism and she co-authored with members of the denialist group HEAL a core tract of the denialist movement called "HIV: Against Science." She described herself in the subtitle of one of her articles as "an AIDS Dissident" and she is a prominent member of the denialist "Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis." Her denialism is well documented, but she conceals her beliefs in order to fool the mainstream media into allowing her to promote them in print. Farber's main contribution to the AIDS denialist movement is to broadcast their views to the general public in the disguise of objective journalism. In her writing for the popular press, she has consistently and deceptively refused to fully disclose her deep involvement with, and her role as a spokesperson for, the denialist camp. She has also evaded explaining clearly her own understanding or beliefs about HIV and AIDS. Instead, she allows other denialists to make the case for her in extended, laudatory quotes, while maintaining the pretense that she is just an objective reporter asking honest questions, and one who is unfairly abused for her honesty: All I ever did was follow and report, with what some may consider excessive attention, the vital debate about whether HIV is the cause of AIDS. And whether AZT is a viable therapy for those who are HIV antibody positive. And whether being HIV antibody positive is the same as "having" HIV. And whether "having" HIV necessarily means your immune system is decaying. Etc. I consider all of these questions to be very straightforward, logical, and of obvious importance. I simply picked up a thread and followed it. (Farber , "AIDS Inc." 1994). Farber's disingenuous claim to "follow and report" on an issue in which she is deeply committed to one side is one she has tried to maintain even as the Harper's Magazine piece brought new attention to the denialist clique. She is reported in The New York Times as saying that she "does not endorse [denialist Peter] Duesberg's position but is simply reporting on an unpopular view. 'People can't distinguish, it seems, between describing dissent and being dissent [sic],'" she wrote in an email to the reporter, Lia Miller. But in fact, people can distinguish between reportage and the party line, and Farber has always toed the latter. She has for two decades consistently attacked medicine, belittled scientific research and enthusiastically promoted denialists and their various claims. There is nothing even remotely balanced in her work. Despite the denialist motive that drives her writing, Farber lacks the courage of her convictions and won't publicly stand behind the denialist ideology she promotes so relentlessly. She even cravenly disclaims her own positions when cornered. In a recent email she sent to a wide circulation list, she wrote of her Harper's Magazine article, "It does not, for example, say that all AIDS drugs are ghastly, or worthless." No, perhaps not in those exact words, but Farber is being disingenuous. What her article does say is "Duesberg thinks that up to 75 percent of AIDS cases in the West can be attributed to drug toxicity. If toxic AIDS therapies were discontinued, he says, thousands of lives could be saved virtually overnight." In the same email, she asserted "In each article [in the past] where I have addressed HAART I have included, clearly, the fact that the regimens have absolutely helped people who are very sick." That statement's as absolutely false as it is hypocritical. For example, in an article about HAART published in 2000, she made two comments about the benefits of antiretroviral drugs: There are facts and figures, studies and counter-studies, a virtual blizzard of data that could be arranged to show any number of things. The new AIDS drugs have saved people's lives: that's one piece of truth. The new AIDS drugs have killed people: that's another. The new AIDS drugs have damaged and deformed some people so badly that although they are alive, they wish they were dead. And: Precisely what it means for a life to be "saved" is complicated, especially when the patient was not sick to begin with. As [German denialist Claus] Koehnlein wryly commented, "If you treat completely healthy people you can claim great therapeutic success." Both of these statements, spun by sarcasm, are in effect claims that no people with HIV/AIDS have benefited from HAART, which is a blatant lie. Farber has tried to portray herself as a neutral observer to The New York Times and critics by claiming she merely presents the contradictory views of others for the edification of the reader. But when we reviewed 34 articles about AIDS by Farber, we found that the clear thesis and topic of every single one was some variant of AIDS denialism--HIV does not cause AIDS; AIDS doesn't exist; there is no heterosexual AIDS; there is no AIDS epidemic in Africa; HIV is not transmitted by sex or by semen or by breast milk; HIV does not exist... Farber's writing style typically highlights extensive quotes from denialists, whom she describes in warm, laudatory and respectful terms and whose claims are given great credence. By contrast, she consistently attacks legitimate HIV science, medicine, researchers and AIDS activists. Occasionally, she takes the words of legitimate doctors and advocates out of context to support the denialist argument. All of this is held together with her grandiose narrative of her Quest for The Truth: This, she says, "is my private hell, but also my great Sisyphean challenge. My labyrinth…" (Berkowitz: "Interview" 2000). Celia Farber wants the world to regard her as a courageous and objective investigative journalist, but in reality she's nothing more than a lying propagandist for the denialist mini-movement. What is shocking is that Harper's Magazine's editors fell for this scam. Roger Hodge, Farber's editor and, sadly, the man replacing Harper's Magazine's legendary editor Lewis Lapham, has defended his ignominious debut by claiming that he is merely airing an important controversy. It is not yet clear if he actually shares Farber's denialism or was, by failing to exercise due diligence, merely deceived by her masquerade as a journalist. Quite possibly, both of these things are true. On the question of HIV as the cause of AIDS, he told Gay City News "I don't feel like I am qualified to judge it"-a dodge similar to Farber's feints when she's in the headlights. The New York Times reported that "Mr. Hodge said the magazine stood behind the article and Ms. Farber. 'The fact that she's been covering this story does not make her a crackpot - it makes her a journalist. She's a courageous journalist, I believe, because she has covered the story at great personal cost.'" Hodge also continues to assert the accuracy of the article against the overwhelming evidence presented to him that the piece is a farrago of fabrications, errors and innuendo. Gay City News reported that he said: "It was very, very thoroughly fact-checked over the course of three months. … A lot of what people are describing as errors are differences of opinion about the data." But his fact-checkers were either biased or incompetent, because at least 58 scientific and non-scientific howlers made it into print (www.aidstruth.org). Did Farber provide Hodge with her own list of "experts" to consult as fact-checkers? Or did Hodge select them based on his own knowledge of science and medicine? In either case, this vital task in the editing of any article was thoroughly botched. If all it takes to get a science-bashing article into the new, dumbed-down Harper's Magazine is to warm-over baseless conspiracy theories and wild speculation, then we can expect the next issue to feature a piece from the Discovery Institute that promotes Intelligent Design – let's teach the controversy, brave Sir Roger! And perhaps he'll offer space to the oft-maligned Holocaust denialists, too, who make the same claim that legitimate scholars will not pay attention to their theories. Hodge's quotes in Gay City News reveal that he still sees AIDS denialism as something honorable, a case of the little guy taking on the big bad wolves of the federal government and the pharmaceutical industry, standing up to be counted, risking it all for the sake of the truth and freedom of speech. If this were true, Hodge would have the full support of all of us, for we share this predisposition. We, like most scientists and AIDS activists, are liberals and progressives. That's why it's so difficult for us to accept that Harper's Magazine, a journal aimed at liberal intellectuals, would print Farber's article. The AIDS denialists are not honest dissidents, and they tarnish the word by using it. In South Africa, they even have tried to link their dissidence to that of Nelson Mandela, as if the two positions could in any way be equated. And when it comes to craven profiteering and the unethical exploitation of people with HIV, the denialists' champions, such as Matthias Rath and David Rasnick, take the cake. Where Roger Hodge got it so badly wrong was to allow such an obviously error-ridden and biased article into a once-reputable magazine. In the circumstances, Hodge should now do what is honorable and resign for the sake of his magazine's reputation. He's proven himself not up to the task of editing an article. He's proven unable to exercise intelligent judgment about scientific discourse, medicine, public health and the HIV epidemic. He's proven himself gullible and sloppy by being fooled by a writer he told Gay City News he's known for "many years." Perhaps you knew Farber both too well and not well enough, Roger? And perhaps, Lewis Lapham, you knew Roger both too well and not well enough when bequeathing your legacy to him? Jeanne Bergman, PhD, Health GAP, New York, NY John P. Moore, PhD, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York |