Another HIV Denier dead

Posted by ERV on April 18, 2012
(30)
More »

Via jonnyneviripine:

Maria Papagiannidou died last Sunday. Another very public and active denialist has kicked the bucket; sad but predictable. Her face and “story” is all over the internet. You can read more about her there. I know she contacted some people I know about starting HAART but presumably she left it a bit late. She and her husband did everything within their considerable powers to rubbish HIV science, question the medicine and scare people away from treatment: for that she’s now paid the ultimate price.

Maria Papagiannidou (or Μαρία Παπαγιαννίδου, if youre Greek), died on Sunday. She was an HIV-1 positive HIV Denier, and died (predictably) of a complication of HIV/AIDS, pulmonary embolism and thrombosis. HIV/AIDS patients are at ~10-20x risk of developing this as the general population.

You can find her all over the internet, telling people HIV is a lie, living a hypocritical life:

You can see many people who stopped the pills and wait to be celebrated all around the world in the documentary “The science of panic” by Isabel Otaduy Somme and Patrizia Monzani (2011). However some of them, me included, took protease inhibitors again for a while when faced with serious infections. This does not mean that we believe in the HIV/AIDS theory.

…

“…use arvs not as antiviral drugs but as suppressant drugs to stop inflammatory processes that are damaging to the organism…”

What a load of shit. If you want to calm down the immune system, we have a cadre of medications useful for that very purpose. What a coincidence that ‘certain patients’ who ‘the establishment’ calls’ HIV positive’ cant use those immunosuppressives. They need protease inhibitors (drugs that are not used as immunosuppressives in any other context, ever).

She wrote a book ‘Goodbye AIDS! Did it ever exist?‘ (and possibly some others mentioned by the Greek press I cant find on Amazon). From the intro:

It is said that a cure for ‘AIDS’ cannot be found, but I was ‘HIV-positive’ for 10 years, had full-blown ‘AIDS’ for another 12 years and have now become perfectly fine again without any doctor’s intervention or medication.

Thats a lie. In the same dam book she says she was diagnosed in 1985, and on antiretrovirals until 2007:

On April 23, 2007, she stopped taking the pills prescribed against AIDS, became strong again and regained the freedom we all lost in 1984.

An HIV Denier taking antiretrovirals (then rationalizing it while maintaining their denialist position or pretending it never happened) reminds me of the quack cancer patients on Orac blog. The ones who use chemo, radiation, etc, but then pretend they didnt and credit their ‘success’ to their complementary quack treatment, and are surprised when they stop chemo/radiation (or in this case, ARVs) and are dead 5 years later (well, as surprised as a dead person can be).

Sad, disgusting, and infuriating.

Keywords:
(30)
More »

Comments

  1. #1 Thomas54
    April 18, 2012

    Many would say “Good riddance”, me included.

  2. #2 Kamizushi
    April 18, 2012

    What’s really sad is that they manage to convince other people people. If only the anti-science folks were only a problem for themselves, then maybe I would have some pity left for their own fates.

  3. #3 MikeMa
    April 18, 2012

    Would be nice if some of her ‘admirers’ would say “Holy shit!” and get back on treatment. That seems the only fitting epitaph the moron deserves.

  4. #4 TCC
    April 19, 2012

    Peter Duesberg, the chief HIV denialist, has offered to inject himself with HIV. It is well past time to take him up on that offer. I would be willing to grow the virus…and provide the syringe.

  5. #5 WLU
    April 19, 2012

    The nice thing is, over a long enough term this sort of thing should exert evolutionary pressure to weed out the stupid and paranoid.

  6. #6 David Crowe
    April 19, 2012

    You people are so sweet. Maria’s body is still warm and you’re already gloating. Sadly Maria had decided to go back on the drugs a while ago and her liver simply couldn’t take it.

  7. #7 ERV
    April 19, 2012

    Her poor liver, eh?

    Her liver just up and dissolved into clots in her legs and lungs?

  8. #8 Dee
    April 19, 2012

    It’s up to the person dealing with the disease to decide whether or not they want to be on treatment. You guys have not walked in her shoes and you don’t know the circumstances that led up to her death. You’re sitting there with your smug face, celebrating the death of a fellow human being. Whether or not there are contradictory views out there, in the end, it’s up to the individual to choose which way s/he wants to go. Don’t insult the intelligence of people with your condescending articles and comments…we are all capable of making informed decisions. If we make the wrong call, what’s it to you anyway? It’s not like you give two squirts of piss about what happens to the next person.

  9. #9 Jack Knight
    April 19, 2012

    David Crowe is changing the cause of death. That’s what all the denialists do when one of them dies.

    Some claim Maggiore died of stress while Celia Farber claims it was an “herbal cleanse”. The denialists also love to blame the deceased by claiming they were secretly drug addicts. Right now at ReThiking AIDS facebook page on the Maria P thread, they are accusing Emery Taylor and Hew Christie of secretly being drug addicts! What a sweet lot they are.

    If you go to AIDSTruth.org you will find other examples of the denialists claiming their fallen brothers and sisters were secretly drug addicts.

  10. #10 Dee
    April 19, 2012

    Why must there be people who insist on dividing the community by defining them as either a “denialist-crazy-loons” or a “conformist-smarty-pants”? Why can’t people be allowed to discuss their own experiences without being labelled and ridiculed? It’s this exact behaviour that makes people scared to come out and ask for help! As a nurse, I find it extremely agitating that people are so intolerant of each others RIGHT to choose for themselves. Health Care Workers are told continuously to uphold patient rights! We are taught that patients have a right to make their own decisions/refuse treatment/seek alternative opinions. If a nurse/doctor denied a patient his rights, there would be headlines in the paper, screaming foul and bloody murder. Yet here we are…people who wouldn’t want to be denied their basic rights, pissed off with people who choose to exercise those same rights…

    I think it’s a good idea to question things! Don’t just eat everything up…”Denialist” or “Conformist” – we’re all after the same thing! Surviving! Do you think any of the people who have died, WANTED to die? Also do you think they didn’t know the gamble they may or may not have been taking? Do you think that people don’t know the risks? What do you think medical staff say to people when they get diagnosed with HIV? Aren’t we informing them everyday in every way possible that there is treatment available? They know the choices. They choose the one they think will work for them and who the hell are we to tell them what they should or shouldn’t do with their own bodies? There are risks in both choices. I’ve seen them myself with patients dealing with the harsh side-effects of the drugs. Of course we could tell them that the side-effects will disappear eventually, we do tell them that…but do we know that for a fact? No. So ultimately, the choice HAS to be theirs even if it’s not the popular choice. If you want to be helpful, present your individual experiences…let people openly discuss it without fear of being ridiculed. We are all just looking for answers. The reason I’m even on this site was to find answers but the author doesn’t provide any answers, just a platform for people to say “I told you so” with no facts, records or proof that they know everything there is to know about how this woman died which is just as bad as so-called “denialists” making drug addiction claims on those that have passed.

    Read. Research. Talk to people. Make your own mind up. Deal with the consequences. But don’t go after each other acting like you’re the superior being because you think the choice you made is the smart and only correct one…you just come off as a power-seeking control freak that wants to micro-manage the choices other people make. Try playing Sims, it may satisfy you being able to control when people eat, sleep, and take a dump…

    FYI, I don’t subscribe to either option. I am not even HIV positive…but seeing my patients suffer, I am open-mindedly seeking answers to all of the questions hanging over our heads. I deeply respect all sufferers of the disease and I know every one of them had to make really difficult decisions, decisions that some of us negative people can’t fathom facing…it almost cripples me with dread and fear imagining myself in their position…I respect them for trying.

  11. #11 Poodle Stomper
    April 19, 2012

    I for one am not at all surprised. I only wish that this had happened before she could have influenced other people to go down her path of stupid.

  12. #12 JKR
    April 20, 2012

    Oh, Dee, you poor thing.
    There, there, papa’s here. You are okay.

  13. #13 Dee
    April 20, 2012

    lol…shurrup…

  14. #14 JKR
    April 20, 2012

    Waaaa…! Waaaa…!
    Why won’t you respect me and my opinions!

  15. #15 Dee
    April 20, 2012

    Sarcasm noted from the first comment papa JKR…no need to be redundant. Thanks though. :)

  16. #16 JKR
    April 20, 2012

    Ah, good. I’m glad it worked.
    That’s my two squirts of piss. I’m done.

  17. #17 Dee
    April 20, 2012

    Excellent. Move along, you should change those underpants. :)

  18. #18 Jonny
    April 20, 2012

    HI Abbie, the book is on amazon.com – your link works. Look at all the comments! Folks, please comment that the woman died of AIDS, so reading her book might no be a path to englightenment!

    I wonder how many denialist websites will be updated to reflect her death. According to most of them she’s still “alive and well” ; remarkably so for someone dead and burried.

    As @sethkal remarked most of the denialists are aging white men: Raznick, Rath, Duschberg, Crowe, Bauer. They won’t be around much longer. Denialists croak usually five years after embracing the cult. The rest of us will be alive and well to continue fighting for good health and long life.

    David Crowe and friends will have another denialist lined up to front their suicide campaign! Watch this space.

    ps – love ERV blog. Ingenious idea to mash up South Park with Science :-)

  19. #19 Wow
    April 20, 2012

    “You guys have not walked in her shoes and you don’t know the circumstances that led up to her death.”

    Complications from contracting AIDS was big on my list of candidates.

    And, given that your body can’t really explain why it’s poorly too well, in what sense did SHE know the circumstances that led up to her death?

    Mind you, I don’t like “Good riddance”. Nobody really deserves that, though it may be the least bad of a slew of bad denouements.

    It happened. End of Story. No gloating.

    Glad she’s no longer spouting idiocy? Yes. Death didn’t have to be the way to do it, and if her death from AIDS ensures more lives are saved by taking the proper medication, there may be some good from her death.

  20. #20 Wow
    April 20, 2012

    “Why can’t people be allowed to discuss their own experiences without being labelled and ridiculed?”

    And when some opinion is ludicrous, why can’t everyone who can see it as ludicrous ridicule the thought?

    After all, they’ve experienced the lunatic talking to them. Then YOU come along and ridicule them!

  21. #21 Justicar
    April 20, 2012

    Why can’t people be allowed to discuss their own experiences without being labelled and ridiculed?

    Because: having false beliefs about the nature of reality has consequences, for the individual and the group. It is one thing for someone to die after accidentally walking off of a cliff; it is quite another for someone to (try to) convince ill-educated people that the laws of physics are subject to one’s beliefs so that several of the gullible die walking off a cliff.

    It’s this exact behaviour that makes people scared to come out and ask for help! As a nurse, I find it extremely agitating that people are so intolerant of each others RIGHT to choose for themselves

    As a nurse, surely you took some ethics class that distinguished between: explaining to someone what treatment x is, why it’s been suggested by a doctor AND sneaking into her house in the middle of the night and forcing the procedure on her. No one has denied this currently dead person the right to make her own choices while she was alive. HIV experts weren’t cornering her in dark alleys and shoving ARV drugs up her ass. People in very robust language objected to her idiocy.

    I think it’s a good idea to question things! Don’t just eat everything up…”Denialist” or “Conformist” – we’re all after the same thing!

    As it happens (and this relates to my first point), it is entirely possible for one’s beliefs to be in opposition to one’s goals. Namely, denying that one is terminally ill when one is in fact terminally ill has a nasty habit of taking care of that ‘surviving’ thing – almost axiomatically. (and this is my being *very* generous with accepting that we all are *in fact* after the same thing; psychopaths do walk among us, you know)

    The reason I’m even on this site was to find answers but the author doesn’t provide any answers, just a platform for people to say “I told you so” with no facts, records or proof that they know everything there is to know about how this woman died which is just as bad as so-called “denialists” making drug addiction claims on those that have passed.

    Odd. Seems like you’re here just to tone/concern troll Abbie to death. If you are here looking for answers (which requires a question – in this case, does HIV exist), then you’ve not done a good job of looking around. Or on her last blog, like where she bitch-slapped around Michael Behe on one way by which it is *known* (not just believed) that HIV *exists* and *evolves*, and how a biologist like Behe should be able to determine this on his own without needing a grad student to become his professor on the internet. A failure on your part to find the easily indexed and referenced articles Abbie has written on HIV (and how we know it exists!) does not constitute, alas, an error on hers.

    ::stops::

    Goddammit. I keep telling myself not to read the comments on these articles, or comment on them myself. I’m going for a walk.

  22. #22 AndrewV
    April 20, 2012

    @#5,

    I will go with that myself. This is just one more self-correcting issue.

  23. #23 julianna kenny
    April 21, 2012

    please note – you so called experts – that there have been many many papers issued at conferences citing the RISE by TEN FOLD of DVT and PE in the POST HAART ERA. This is documented and the jury is still out on safety as far as many MANY ‘patients’ are concerned. AIDS – dying of AIDS is a bit of a misnomer isnt it – aids as a clinical systemic outcome has been documented in the absence of a HIV positive test result – all the same OI’s manifest in post transplant , post chemo and other conditions – including starvation. PCP, MAC, CMV. Not once in your cheap and nasty little column article do you cite ONE article of the thousands presented at conferences discussing the toxicity of these medications. You are a pharma whore dear – plain and simple and there are plenty of you around watching your own shitty self absorbed career paths . Anyone who could talk so derisively about a woman who struggled with severe toxicity BEFORE she ever stopped taking those awful medications – does not deserve to be in the medical profession and with such a one sided blog – oozing arrogance and self congratulatory bile as it does – should not be in research either – because you clearly are someone who will be very easily co opted into a blinkers on, ignore all stop signs , any red light warnings and proceed to medicate for ever more after until every organ collapses – but hey if the cd4 and the ‘VL’ are marching in opposite direction down their respectively assigned trajectories – you will be out there dancing on graves insisting ‘ we did not fail to treat , medicate and get the right result’.

  24. #24 Poodle Stomper
    April 21, 2012

    julianna,
    Just because you don’t understand the science doesn’t make it false. This mindset of yours is no different than idiots who don’t understand evolution claiming that creationism is valid. You’re wrong. You don’t understand WHY you’re wrong because you don’t have enough of a foundation in the sciences involved. I just hope you aren’t HIV+ or you’d have a pretty darn good chance of ending up like Maria, or Kim Bannon, or CHristine Maggiore, or Hu, or any of the countless other HIV deniers with HIV.

  25. #25 Notung
    April 21, 2012

    Why do people deny HIV/AIDS? It just seems really strange. Is it a religious thing? I can understand why people deny, say, evolution. They think that it conflicts with their religious belief. But why are people so committed to denying HIV/AIDS? Does anyone know?

  26. #26 Justicar
    April 21, 2012

    I hope that long, long, long, long run-on, err, ‘sentence’ has been as cathartic for Polyanna, err, Julianna as it wanted it to be. I have to agree with it on one point though: I think Abbie should explain in very direct terms why it is she doesn’t cite the ‘thousands’ of papers proving HIV doesn’t exist.

    Of course, our emotionally crippled contributor clearly doesn’t read for comprehension. Dying of AIDS? Misnomer? Well, let’s see what Abbie in fact wrote as opposed to what you claim. Post is titled ‘another hiv denier dead’. That does not logically imply that the cause of death was AIDS. Only that someone who a.) has been diagnosed with HIV, and b.) denies that HIV exists has died: the reason, at least in the title, is left unspecified.

    She was an HIV-1 positive HIV Denier, and died (predictably) of a complication of HIV/AIDS, pulmonary embolism and thrombosis.

    Seems to be here that the reported proximate cause of her death was from a complication that is known to be higher in HIV/AIDS patients: blood clots.

    Nowhere else does Abbie state AIDS is itself *the* cause of death. Now, I’m sure you’re probably properly skeptical about whether cancer exists too, but take Christopher Hitchens. It is said that he died of cancer. When people say he died of cancer, what they mean isn’t that abnormally dividing cells all jumped up and stopped his heart. What they mean is that the ravages of cancer left his body so weak that it was unable to properly resist, even with assistance, the assault from other organisms. He actually died of pneumonia, but for the existence of the cancer, he likely would not have died to it.

    For the same reason, a lot of people will say that x died of y disease, when what they mean is that x died of complications brought on by y disease that but for the presence of y disease likely would not have been fatal.

  27. #27 Anna Kenny
    April 22, 2012

    “It is not yet known what the long-term effects of elevated blood fat levels will be, but it is clear that in HIV negative people high cholesterol levels are associated with coronary artery disease, heart attacks, and strokes. According to Keith Henry, M.D., director of the HIV Clinic at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, MN, writing in the February 15, 2000 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, “As the HIV epidemic moves into populations that are already at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, increased rates of metabolic abnormalities could have serious consequences as the population ages.” Indeed, there have been several reports of relatively young men taking HAART who have experienced cardiovascular disease and/or heart attacks, although most of these have occurred in men with other risk factors such as smoking or high blood pressure.

    Elevated blood fats may not be the only factor predisposing people taking HAART to heart disease. At the 7th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in January/February 2000, James Sosman, M.D., and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin reported that protease inhibitors can affect the endothelium, or blood vessel linings. Speaking at a meeting of the American Heart Association last fall, Dr. Sosman noted, “We need to be taking the long-term cardiac care of HIV patients who are using protease inhibitors more seriously.”

    Also at the 7th CROI, D.L. Johnson and colleagues reported that protease inhibitor therapy was associated with an increase in systolic blood pressure, another risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Jack Stapleton, M.D., and colleagues from the University of Iowa College of Medicine has reported on several cases of deep vein thrombosis (blood clotting) or pulmonary embolism (blockage of blood vessels in the lung by a migrating piece of clotted blood) in persons taking combination regimens that included indinavir, nelfinavir, ritonavir, or saquinavir.

    In addition to medications that lower blood fats and cholesterol, common sense measures such as diet modification (reducing the consumption of foods high in sugar, fats, and cholesterol), aerobic exercise, and smoking cessation are likely to be as beneficial in reducing heart disease for HIV positive people as they are for HIV negative people.”

  28. #28 anna kenny
    April 22, 2012

    You are a crass ignorant and seriously unprofessional industry runner girl …but I am sure it scores you lots of extra brownie points – you should be sued . You should be sued for commenting as you do in a so called ‘professional’ ‘expert’ ‘capacity’ about an individual s medical case when you know nothing about it . You have no access to her medical records, no communication with her doctors of past 25 years – much of it on these meds- and absolutely no place to conduct a discourse of this tone . This “Party Line” , that , any one of us ,of what I will call ‘The Patient -Subject’ Body Collective ( and for the most part we are very very patient and understanding of the total inability of the Pharmaceutical Industry to supply or support non toxic healing respite breaks from long term chemical ingestion in the form of chemo antibiotics HAART etc etc ) , is a little totalitarian for my stomach these days and like many other women who wonder at the lack of individualised dose adjustments for our ‘body collective’ – made up as it is of a myriad of patient profiles in terms of weight , metabolism , “co-morbidities” , environmental factors, etc etc ., I feel less and less confident that Your ‘Profession’ has my best interests and that of my family as its priority. We are just a number , a statistic , non entities with no right to question object or think outside the box. Never mind that a good percentage of your fellow industry people still discuss and query if this whole “plague” were not started in a lab to begin with . Spare us the harping jaded tone . Maria Papagianidou always – it seemed to me – spoke from her own personal journey and – beliefs. She genuinely believed that there could be other solutions and other languages for this condition and she was already having many difficulties with her treatment she she took her first treatment interruption – at a time when they were the subject of much funding and exploration and many online article s about their possibility. In my Hospital setting and several more that i am aware of Doctors do use them for all manner of reasons – hepatoxicity being a major one – something Maria had suffered and this was what caused , in part her death. Her death was caused by three factors associated with HAART. They are not associated with HIV. But with classes of drug therapy. End of .

  29. #29 Cherry Desalvo
    May 30, 2012

    Excellent blog here! Also your web site loads up fast! What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol

  30. #30 Rick
    Ontario
    July 30, 2012

    This crazy nut bar is finally out of time! I see some comments on here saying crap like “oh walk a mile in her shoes” and “blah blah it’s her choice to be on treatment, why are people bad mouthing her for that”…. Well I have news for you few denialist lovers that managed to find your way to this post, I agree, it’s their choice about treatment, But when they start telling people that they’re not on treatment and that HIV isn’t real, or doesn’t cause AIDS and AIDS isn’t real, than that becomes everyone’s business, These crazy bastards have set back education on this epidemic by 20 years, if not more… They all seem to be dying pretty quickly these days, Emery Taylor, Karri Stokely, Christine Maggiore, Not to mention the poor child that Maggiore failed to get tested or treated what so ever that died from AIDS, Ya know I find it sad that seemingly smart people believe this shit right up until their dying day, But god damn, when you are so disillusioned and stupid that your little 3 year old child suffers the ultimate price because of your stupidity and retarded beliefs is somehow worse than murder, there should have been charges laid in that case and I’ll say that until I die, Now it’s quite funny that every time one of these stupid people die from their denial and AIDS that these websites where they spew their stupidity always cover for them, you always get a cause of death like in this case they’re saying it was her Liver, we all know that’s bullshit, isn’t it funny that when one dies another steps up and spits out the bullshit for them?? Then you have people on sites like Questioning AIDS, like that fellow Jonathan Barnett, Who is quite seriously sick, you can tell just by looking at the guy, He has his own little site, on that site he takes pictures of his ailments and puts them up for everyone to see, The man has had everything from Herpes on his face to Early HIV-Associated Dementia (HAD). And the lunatic STILL questions HIV and AIDS, But as he recently posted, He’s going back on the ARV’s… It’s really funny how these people bad mouth the meds every chance they get, yet when they really need the meds they’re hypocrite asses end up right back on the LIFE SAVING MEDS that they should have been on all along, they wait till they’re almost dead and get on the meds and when they finally croak all their denialist friends are like “See these meds killed him or her” or “See these meds dont do shit” It’s sickening.. And there is one thing I’d like to say to Jonathan Barnett and that is this: When you have had the serious ailment I’ve seen in your pictures on your website, you no longer have HIV sir, You now are suffering from full blown AIDS, This man has also said himself that he’s been on the meds two other times in his life, Any good doctor will tell you that starting and stopping these meds will make your virus mutate and become resistant to the Drugs, Yet they still don’t learn. You would think their dying friends would change their minds, I personally can’t wait for people like Duesberg and Crowe and Gary Null to finally die and I mean that, there is a special place in HELL for all of them, including Liam Scheff Celia Farber, the list goes on and on, The Perth Group, Thabo Mbeki, all of ya’s rot in hell, to the people that are afflicted with this terrible illness, Please do not listen to these crazy bastards, Listen only to your own medical Doctor, Take your meds if they’re given to you, and Good luck with everything! Keep the faith, we will see a cure one of these days!