How covid conspiracy theories led to an alarming resurgence in AIDS denialism
MIT Technology Review
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Following the pandemic, a renewed suspicion of public health figures and agencies is giving new life to ideas that had long ago been pushed to the margins. And the impact is far from confined to the dark corners of the web. Arguments spreading rapidly online are reaching millions of people—and, in turn, potentially putting individual patients at risk.
In this edition of What’s Next in Tech, discover how covid opened the door to a wave of medical conspiracies, including long-debunked fringe ideas about AIDS. ?
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Widespread distrust of our public health system is reviving long-debunked ideas on HIV and AIDS—and energizing a broad movement that questions the foundations of disease prevention.
Several million people were listening in February when Joe Rogan falsely declared that “party drugs” were an “important factor in AIDS.” His guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, the former evolutionary biology professor turned contrarian podcaster Bret Weinstein, agreed with him.
Speaking to the biggest podcast audience in the world, the two men were promoting dangerous and false ideas—ideas that were in fact debunked and thoroughly disproved decades ago.
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These comments and others like them add up to a small but unmistakable resurgence in AIDS denialism—a false collection of theories arguing either that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or that there’s no such thing as HIV at all.
These claims had largely fallen out of favor until the coronavirus arrived. But, following the pandemic, a renewed suspicion of public health figures and agencies is giving new life to ideas that had long ago been pushed to the margins. Read the story.?
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1 个月OK Bo?tjan Dolin?ek
Quality Assurance Engineer specializing in Selenium, Java, TestNG, Eclipse, Postman, CI/CD, and Jira
1 个月I personally don't trust the government - especially more so now after COVID. So much hypocrisy with their handling of pandemic. I personally have never heard of any AIDS denials - seems somewhat ridiculous and possibly politically driven seeing as the blindfolds people are wearing are red. I'm not surprised though seeing as MIT isn't the epitome of high moral virtue. Case and point - feeding irradiated oatmeal to mentally disabled children in the 50's without their knowledge in a mental health facility. They never acknowledged any wrong doing even though they were successfully sued.
Fundamental issue: When public officials are not honest with the public, it erodes public trust. More importantly it fans the flames of conspiracy theorists. Public trust has suffered irreparable damage. Much of the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of those tasked with protecting it. I don't know that I've ever listened to Rogan, but the article states '...Rogan falsely declared that “party drugs” were an “important factor in AIDS.” Maybe he's suggesting impaired decision making is a factor in transmission of STD's? News flash: it is. Dangerous, Debunked & false? Or is this a quote taken out of context? The tragedy is thousands will die because they have lost trust in the medical profession. This does not read like part of the solution to me.
Independent Advisor (retired from SLB 2018)
1 个月Judging from recent Edelman Trust reports, trust in many governmental institutions is on the decline, same for corporations, and that mistrust has crept into the scientific community! Sad if I may say so! This is not a national issue as much as a global one