Debating Aids

Is it legitimate to discuss the strength of the link between HIV and Aids? It’s one of these hugely emotive subjects, with a fairly strong and vociferous lobby saying that any open discussion is deplorable and tantamount to Aids denialism. Whenever any debate hits this level, I get deeply suspicious.

Which is why the below clip – from a documentary which The Spectator Events division is screening next week, called House of Numbers – aroused my interest. The film picked up awards at various American film festivals, but has since been denounced as backing Aids denialism. Yet the footage shows Luc Montagnier – who won a Nobel prize last year for his work on Aids – saying that many HIV infections can be shrugged off by a healthy immune system. 

If this is true, isn’t it worth exploring? Isn’t this argument worth having? Should we be screening a documentary like this at all? Let’s have your thoughts.

UPDATE: Richard Wilson was right: several weirdos have suggested that I am somehow an “Aids denier” based on the above 150 words. For the record, my position on this is entirely in keeping with the mainstream: that Aids is caused by HIV, and that Aids is one of the most savage killers that humanity has encountered. My point: that we in the West should throw every resource we have to fighting it: intellectual, as well as financial. Nor is Prof Montagnier an Aids denier: he’s just saying that HIV can be shrugged off by a healthy immune system. But people who are serious about fighting Aids know that anyway.