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Controversial AIDS Doc Leads to Stormy Confrontationby Ethan JacobsBay WindowsFriday Apr 24, 2009 A panel discussion about a controversial AIDS documentary, House of Numbers, descended into a screaming match April 21 at the Boston International Film Festival, with both the film’s director, Brent Leung, and other members of the audience shouting down and attempting to drown out the remarks of Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, an HIV expert and Harvard Medical School professor who was interviewed in the film.
Many of the audience members who attempted to silence Kuritzkes were supporters of a fringe movement known as AIDS denialism, which consists of people who argue that the HIV virus either is not the cause or not the sole cause of AIDS. While AIDS denialism has been roundly rejected as bogus science by the mainstream scientific and medical community, House of Numbers suggests that there is still a robust debate about the cause of AIDS, the existence of HIV, and the validity of HIV testing. Kuritzkes used his remarks to try to debunk the denialist movement, and he is one of more than a dozen scientists interviewed in the film who have signed onto a statement rejecting AIDS denialism and claiming that they were misled about Leung’s intentions in making the film.
Leung and the denialists in the audience at the AMC Loews Boston Common theater vocally objected to the format of the panel discussion even before it got underway. The panel, organized by Amit Dixit -- a board member of Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association (MASALA) -- in conjunction with Fenway Community Health and the festival organizers, included Kuritzkes and Fenway president and CEO Dr. Stephen Boswell. Kevin Cranston, head of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Infectious Disease, served as moderator, and Cranston invited Leung to participate as a panelist, although Leung elected to remain in the audience.
As Kuritzkes began reading from a prepared statement two members of the audience who appeared in the film walked down to the front of the theater, sat beside Boswell and Kuritzkes at the panelists’ table and refused to leave. Those audience members, Christian Fiala, an Austrian gynecologist, and Liam Scheff, identified in the film as a freelance journalist, both claimed that they were forcibly joining the panel to provide balance. In the middle of Kuritzkes’s speech Leung and several other audience members shouted over him, "This is not a panel!" and, "Where’s the panel?" The shouting reached a fever pitch when Kuritzkes began reading a list of names of AIDS denialists who allegedly died of complications from AIDS.
"This is an exercise in free speech," said Cranston, attempting to quiet the crowd. "Dr. Kuritzkes is speaking. After he has completed speaking we will open up for free dialogue. We can only do this if one person speaks at a time. Shouting people down is not dialogue."
Several audience members continued shouting over Kuritzkes’s remarks despite Cranston’s admonition. Cranston warned audience members that anyone who continued to interrupt the program would be asked to leave. A police officer was present inside the theater, but he did not directly intervene, and Fiala and Scheff remained seated at the panelists’ table for the rest of the program.
Next: Fair and balanced?
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