Christine Maggiore died of AIDS

Christine Maggiore's death certificate [1] states that the immediate cause or condition resulting in her death was disseminated herpes viral infection. Bilateral bronchial pneumonia is given as the underlying cause, and oral candidiasis is given as a significant condition contributing to death.   Based on her statements and her career, Maggiore was HIV-positive (see her book, and note that Alive and Well, the group she started, is described on its website as having been "founded in 1995 by a group of HIV positive diagnosed men and women").  In HIV-infected people, all of the above conditions are AIDS-defining opportunistic infections, and in combination they are hauntingly typical of AIDS in the years before ARVs.  Many people who have died of AIDS shared the same constellation of opportunistic infections that killed Ms Maggiore. HIV-negative individuals almost never have all of these opportunistic infections simultaneously.

Maggiore's physician in the weeks prior to her death was Ilona Abraham, MD, of Encino, California.  She signed the death certificate and states that Maggiore was in her care from December 16, 2008, to December 23, 2008, when she last saw her alive.  Abraham graduated from Semmelweis Medical School in Budapest, Hungary, in 1967. She has an extensive history of malpractice cases and disciplinary actions [2], and no expertise in HIV. Abraham practices bogus "anti-aging" medicine, and treats her patients with untested and unproven treatments such as chelation and homeopathy.  Abraham supported Maggiore's denialism and clearly misdiagnosed and mistreated her.

Maggiore's daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, also died of AIDS when she was 3.  This cause of death, following an autopsy, was recorded on the child's death certificate.  Eliza Jane had no known risk of HIV exposure other than perinatal transmission from her mother.  Maggiore's husband, Robin Scovill, reached an out-of-court settlement last week in a case he and Maggiore had brought against the Coronor's office. Maggiore stated on various denialist web sites that her lawsuit was a challenge to the finding that Eliza Jane died from HIV/AIDS. In fact, the revised lawsuit was not about the cause of her daughter's death, but about whether the LA Coroner's office and its staff violated the family's right to privacy after the child died. We note that the Maggiore family chose to make public many details of the lives and health of the whole family - mother, daughter, son and husband - so there is an irony in any lawsuit that alleges a privacy violation. The lawsuit was settled for $15,000, with no admission of wrongdoing, presumably to save the cost of a trial. Hence the LA Coroner's verdict that Eliza Jane Scovill died of HIV/AIDS remains the official verdict on, and the truth about, the death of Eliza Jane Scovill.

Unfortunately, no autopsy was performed on Maggiore's body, and she was cremated.* Presumably, her family made these decisions.  AIDS denialists often claim that they are victims of conspiracies and cover-ups.  But they have been anything but transparent in the way they have handled the horrible and unnecessary death from HIV/AIDS of Christine Maggiore.

Christine Maggiore's name has been added to AIDStruth.org's list of Denialists who have Died of AIDS [3].

* Update 2009-12-15: Maggiore's death certificate [4] states that no autopsy was performed. However, a document by the discredited pathologist Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati recently published on denialist websites appears to be a secondary interpretation of an autopsy performed by Dr David Posey. The autopsy report has not been released, and the coroner's office apparently never notified that it took place. It is not known why Maggiore's family commissioned a private autopsy and then withheld the report and findings of the licensed pathologist who performed the autopsy. You can read more here [5].