Michael Fumento

This book continues to be controversial, because many people continue to dislike the truth.

The truth is that it is fairly easy to become infected with the HIV virus if you are a homosexual/bisexual male engaging in condom-free sex with lots of other males; or if you are an intravenous drug user who shares needles; or if you are a woman who is in a long-term sexual relationship with a man in one of the first two groups; or if you are a fetus being carried by a woman with an HIV infection.

If you are not in one of those four groups, your chance of contracting AIDS is almost zero. Further, though many people who contracted AIDS claimed never to have used drugs, or (if male) never to have had sex with a another man, when rigorous investigation took place, they almost all turned out to be lying.

Fumento was the first author to document these facts for the general public, and to point out the terrible corollary: every dollar spent warning people who had almost zero risk that they might catch AIDS was a dollar that was NOT spent warning the people in high-risk groups about the specific behaviors they were engaging in that made it likely they would catch a lethal disease. Thousands of gays and drug users died because political correctness said that lies must be told about who was at risk, and why.

It's been twenty-five years since this book was published, and it still gets attacked, even though every prediction Fumento made about the course of the epidemic has proven true. No evidence is ever cited by those criticizing this book, because all the evidence is on Fumento's side. Instead, he gets lied about. "Humankind can not stand too much reality", as T. S. Elliot once wrote.

As I write, fear-mongers are trying to panic us about the Ebola virus. Visit http://fumento.com/ and search for Ebola it you've been taken in by that hype. Note that in Africa, there are hundreds of AIDS deaths every year for each Ebola death. Then, instead of worrying about lethal epidemics that won't happen, start worrying about systematic lying about science, health, and politics. That last is a real problem.… (más)

My reactions to reading this book in 1993.

An informative book packed with a lot of information on why dioxin, electromagnetic fields, and Agent Orange are not the dangers the media and environmentalists make them out to be. There’s a lot of detail on dishonest, crusading zealots and hysterical parents convinced they and their children are in danger from numerous things and plain sloppy reporters and lying reporters and terrotorial bureaucrats. Fumento gives examples of the victims – and victim’s mother – as epidemiologist, and the fact that Americans will tolerate just about any oppression, pay any cost, reject any rational idea if children are given as the justification.

Fumento also gives some nice lessons in epidimiology and logic. I found the section on gasohol the most eye-opening given that it was the subject I knew least about. I was surprised at how worthless gasohol is in every use – pollution control, efficiency, energy independency – its touted for. It exists solely as the result of massive subsidies and at the behest of people like Senator Robert Dole who are thoroughly in the pocket of ethanol robber baron Dwayne Andreas. And, yes, it does damage some cars which I didn’t formerly believe. A wealth of details here, but most, except for the stuff on ethanol, didn’t open my eyes that much – just give me additional evidence for my beliefs.… (más)

Michael Fumento is freelance investigative reporter - not a scientist. Unfortunately, this is a book with a political agenda, not a public health service one, and very few credible HIV research scientists would agree with Mr. Fumento's theories. While I think that Fumento's commentary on the media blitz and health industry's rapacious appetite for seeking profits from HIV is right on target, his science is quite a handful of nonsense. His logic is puzzling at best and the title of the book extremely misleading since it totally ignores basic research on how HIV is transmitted. There is simply no doubt: HIV certainly can be transmitted between heterosexuals, and the only question is whether as a population, heterosexuals are less likely to have sex with someone who is infected with HIV. But the infectious attributes of HIV do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. India, China, Russia and Africa all have huge HIV infection rates, mostly heterosexuals, and not IV drug users. This is a silly, dangerous and misleading book.… (más)