A new book on AIDS denialism by Seth Kalichman will become available in March 2009. AIDSTruth will post a review. The publisher's details:

Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy

Seth C. Kalichman, University of Connecticut

Paralleling the discovery of HIV and the rise of the AIDS pandemic, a flock of naysayers has dedicated itself to replacing genuine knowledge with destructive misinformation—and spreading from the fringe to the mainstream media and the think tank. Now, from the editor of the journal AIDS and Behavior, comes a bold exposé of the scientific and sociopolitical forces involved in this toxic evasion. Denying AIDS traces the origins of AIDS dissidents’ disclaimers during the earliest days of the epidemic and delves into the psychology and politics of the current denial movement in its various incarnations.

Harold Jaffe's new article "The early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the USA" emphasises the power of the epidemiological method to gain an understanding of disease pathogenesis by recounting some of the work done before the isolation of HIV. He says,

Although the importance of [the discovery of HIV] cannot be underestimated, it is also important to understand the epidemiological work that preceded the discovery. It was this work that established AIDS as being most likely caused by a transmissible agent, defined the transmission routes of the agent, suggested its natural history and also provided the basis for initial prevention guidelines.

The Daily Dispatch reports that former US President Jimmy Carter has said of former South African President and AIDS denialist Thabo Mbeki, “Frankly I am glad to see him gone.” Carter also reportedly said that the closest he had ever been to a fist fight was when Mbeki told him that anti-retrovirals for mothers infected with HIV/Aids was a plot of white people against black people.

Chris McGreal investigates Matthias Rath and other charlatans in South Africa in No drugs, just take vitamins: the dangerous advice to cure HIV.

Last week the vitamin campaigner Matthias Rath abandoned a libel suit against the Guardian that had been prompted by articles in which he was accused of endangering thousands of lives by promoting his own pills while denouncing more conventional medicines. Rath focuses his business in eight countries across the world through his website, but it was in South Africa - where he gave them away for free - that his activities generated most concern. Here Chris McGreal investigates the Rath Foundation, and the highly controversial claims of other 'nutritionists' working in the country worst affected by the Aids epidemic, who insist their remedies are the solution to a crisis affecting millions of lives.

Mark Wainberg, Canadian AIDS pioneer and outspoken critic of AIDS denialism has been named a Chevalier of France’s Légion d’Honneur.

See the Canadian Jewish News or the Montreal Gazette.