So what do people think of Scientific American's decision to publish an article by Peter Duesberg, HIV/AIDS denialist extraordinaire?

The justification that they give, is that despite his completely wrong ideas about AIDS, he still has something to contribute in his original field - cancer. But is that enough of an excuse? They make it sound like if you don't have every possible human being working on a problem, somehow it will irreparably damage the scientific enterprise.

I think it's a greater amount of harm to return any legitimacy to this crank and denialist. A lot of his crackpot ideas haven taken hold in Africa, and the results are deadly. Denial of the real causes of HIV, stigma over AIDS diagnoses, and BS cures from local cranks are responsible for nothing but misery and death, and Duesberg bears some responsibility for this.

It's also, in my mind, like giving a podium to Hwang Woo Suk. When someone has shown that they simply can't be trusted in the scientific enterprise, it's time for them to be ignored, permanently. HIV/AIDS denialism has the same deceptive elements of all the other types of denialism, and people who promulgate it really should be banned from contributing to the literature. It's not just some cute iconoclasm or "funny ideas". They are liars who spread deadly ideas. And liars should not be trusted to do anything but contaminate the literature.

I am disappointed in SciAm.

Labels: HIV/AIDS denialism, Peter Duesberg