Foo Fighters Support Dubious AIDS Cause

I've always liked the Foo Fighters but, today, I'm presenting a totally nutty, off-the-wall bit of news about them.

Apparently, they support a website that doesn't think that HIV can make you sick and, more specifically, can cause AIDS.

Let's take this back a few years: This all started with a woman named Christine Maggiore, who was HIV positive. As a non-believer in the HIV/AIDS connection, she had a baby and breastfed her. Well, three years later, the little girl dies of HIV-related pneumonia. To this day, Maggiore denies that HIV was involved in her daughter's death and runs a website, Alive And Well, that encourages HIV positive people to have babies and not to seek medical treatment for the disease. The Foo Fighters link to her website on their community website.

Flash forward to now. Doubters of the HIV/AIDS link have a movie now, "The Other Side of AIDS." And somehow, the Foo Fighters decided that it would be stellar idea to attach their name to the project by doing the soundtrack. The film actually came out a couple years back, but because of a recent article in the Public Library of Science medical journal(linked below), the heat (in the scientific community, at least) is back on them for it.

I'm pretty sickened by the whole thing for a lot of reasons, chief among them that the HIV/AIDS link is very well-supported in research, and pseudo-scientific hand-waving that encourages people not to seek treatment will cost lives. And yet, there has been no real backlash against the Foo Fighters. With their new record, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace prepping for release, it never hurts to remind you all that supporting them is not only supporting the generic KROQ BS the Foo Fighters have become, but supporting the growth of the HIV denial movement, a decision that will cost lives.

There's no MP3 download because they don't deserve to be supported.

Much of the information in this article comes from "HIV Denial in the Internet Era," an article about the consequences of not taking HIV seriously. It's a very good read. PLoS is an excellent, peer-reviewed resource. The best part is that you don't really have to be a science person to understand many of the articles posted to the site. Additional information on the HIV-AIDS link can be found here. While the site is a little dated, it is probably the most concise, complete record of evidence on the web. More support has uncovered added since this site last updated, but this is a very straightforward, easy-to-read digest.

(April Wright)