Controversy lingers after premiere of Nashville director's AIDS documentary
by Jim Ridley
- Brent W. Leung on location for House of Numbers
At the Nashville Film Festival, post-film Q&As are typically group hugs—occasions for actors and filmmakers to bask in the festival's hospitality. The few exceptions prove the rule—like the controversy surrounding a new film by a Nashville director, which made its contentious premiere at the NaFF just two weeks ago.
The movie is called House of Numbers, a documentary that bills itself as "an AIDS film like no other." The first film by Brent W. Leung, a Watkins Film School alumnus with a background in country-music video editing, it made its public bow at a packed Sunday afternoon screening downstairs at Green Hills, and it played there again the following Thursday.
In the intervening days, it caused a fracas at a screening in Boston, triggered pleas for the NaFF to cancel its second Nashville showing, and mobilized denunciation even from some of its own participants. The website aidstruth.org posted a lengthy rebuttal. The commotion came to a head on the festival's closing day, when a post-film discussion provoked fiery exchanges between audience members and panelists while security officers stood ready.
"You're a fucking liar!" a woman in the audience shouted at one panelist, possibly unaware that she sat next to director Leung's mother.
Since the festival, House of Numbers has become a lightning rod on the Internet, drawing scathing attacks, equally fervid support from partisans—and precious little in between.
"I didn't imagine the intense polarities that existed before the movie came out," says Leung, 29, via cell phone from a Starbucks in New York during a visit to his fiancée. "I was a little taken aback. All I did was put up information as spoken."
But members of the scientific and care-giving community that focuses on HIV and AIDS, both local and national, accuse the director of mounting a stealth propaganda campaign to give legitimacy—or at least "truthiness"—to a fringe agenda.
"He doesn't just 'put the information out there,' " says Joseph Interrante, CEO of the AIDS service organization Nashville CARES. "If he was Michael Moore and he was up front about what he was doing, you could take it or leave it. But he selectively packages the information to support a presupposed conclusion."
An ambitious and well-produced documentary, funded by sources all over the world that director Leung is hesitant to disclose, House of Numbers musters an array of talking heads to suggest that HIV/AIDS research is at best riddled with unresolved differences—in testing, in treatment, in causes, in the disease's very definition—and at worst a sinister tool of pharmaceutical conglomerates, whose cures are perhaps even the cause itself.
If all you knew about AIDS were what you saw in House of Numbers, you would probably be surprised to find these are not commonly held views, to put it mildly. Proponents call themselves "dissenters" or "rethinkers"—skeptics who charge that HIV is not directly linked to AIDS, and that anti-retroviral treatments actually prolong illness (and expand Big Pharma's customer base).
"The non-funding of non-conformists has not changed in the U.S.," writes biology professor Peter Duesberg, a panelist at the second Nashville screening, in the FAQ section on his website. "I assume it would be fatal for the current AIDS establishment if they were proven wrong, and that is why it will not change soon."
But the overwhelming balance of the scientific community regards Duesberg and his allies as "AIDS denialists"—dangerous cranks whose possibly deadly views can dissuade the infected from seeking life-saving help.
"The denialists capitalize on the flawed perception that all points of view are equal; they are not," says Harvard Medical School Professor Daniel Kuritzkes, a veteran AIDS researcher who appears in the film, and who served on a rebuttal panel at the movie's combative Boston screening. "Everyone is entitled to a point of view, but when there is a mountain of incontrovertible data on one side, and insinuation, distortion and falsehood on the other side, eventually one must stop listening to and giving press space to the cranks."
Giving their ideas an airing, says Richard D'Aquila, director of the Vanderbilt-Meharry Center for AIDS Research, creates an illusion of doubt where none exists.
"House of Numbers presents a very dangerous point of view, because it raises doubts that may keep those who need it most from seeking diagnosis and care," D'Aquila wrote in an email. "There is absolutely no doubt that HIV causes AIDS, that the diagnostic tests are as good (or better) than those used routinely for any other disease, and that the treatments now used are very effective and tolerable when prescribed/used correctly."
Many scientists find these views so beneath contempt (and so beyond debate) that they don't warrant a response. But they're responding to House of Numbers, perhaps because the potential of film to reach and persuade a broad audience is so powerful.
At the festival, Nashville CARES volunteers handed out a statement issued by 14 scientists who appear in House of Numbers. None had seen the movie at the time. Among them were Kuritzkes, Nobel-laureate biologist David Baltimore, Cornell immunologist John Moore, and HIV co-discoverer Robert Gallo—though absent is the name of Gallo's onetime rival, HIV co-discoverer and Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier, who caps the movie by suggesting a healthy immune system can defeat the virus.
"Mr. Leung was deceptive in his interactions with us," the two-page statement reads. "He informed us that his film was intended to present the true history of AIDS research, and an accurate summary of the science of HIV infection.... The reality is that his film does none of these things. Instead, it presents the AIDS denialist agenda as being a legitimate scientific perspective on HIV/AIDS, when it is no such thing."
Leung says he was disappointed the scientists listed on the statement attacked the film sight unseen, and counters that his only goal was "unbiased journalism." That's why, he says, he chose to present their views alongside "questioners" such as Duesberg without labeling.
"Nobody was taken out of context," Leung says. "There was no hidden agenda."
But online critics have seized upon Internet reports that as long ago as 1999, Leung was producing films about two controversial AIDS theorists, Boyd Graves and Len Horowitz. As the then 19-year-old son of a biology teacher, Leung says that he met with Horowitz during a Nashville appearance out of curiosity, "but it was not something I believed." As for Graves, whom he describes as "not a very credible person at all," Leung says any report that he was filming Graves' book is "completely inaccurate." But he bristles when asked if he feels his movie is being discredited.
"I don't think there's anything to discredit," says Leung, who describes his next project as a romantic comedy. "All we do is raise questions."
On the subject of the film itself, NaFF board president Stacy Widelitz agrees. "After watching the film, I didn't see the big deal," says Widelitz, who served as the Nashville panel's moderator just minutes after seeing it for the first time. "It certainly was not the incendiary propaganda piece I'd been led to expect."
But Widelitz says he was startled by the fury the movie roused on both sides. A Los Angeles web commentator bombarded Widelitz with "personal email attacks," accusing him of condoning everything from mass murder to Holocaust denial if the second Nashville screening wasn't cancelled. He refused.
"Raising questions is what a film festival does," Widelitz says. At the post-film panel, though, he says the filmmakers "didn't help their case," either with their handpicked panel (which tilted the opposite direction as Boston's) or their "aggressive" treatment of audience members who disagreed.
Asked what he hopes his film will accomplish, Brent Leung pauses for a moment as the hubbub in Starbucks quiets. "I hope that people will acknowledge that people are dying all over the world," he says, "and there are a lot of fundamental contradictions we need to examine."
As for the movie itself, Stacy Widelitz says it meets the basic standard for inclusion in a film festival.
"It's a well-made film," Widelitz says. "Triumph of the Will is a well-made film too."
Email jridley@nashvillescene.com, or call 615-844-9402.
Comments (17)
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The controversy lingers because the Tennessean made the mistake of giving the Brent Leung crockumentary any semblance of legitimacy in the first place. There is no debate about what causes AIDS among medical researchers and there is no doubt that HIV treatments improve the health of people living with HIV/AIDS. Giving Peter Duesberg and other AIDS Denialists credibility is a disservice to public health and the original write on the Leung film was just that. Seth Kalichman http://denyingaids.blogspot.com
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Jim, You couldn't have written a more biased article. It's a shame that real journalism is DEAD in the age of the HIV=AIDS dogma. It is because of these thousands of brave "dissenters" that I am alive today, and living whole and healthy. It seems to me that before someone can offer a critique on a subject, or especially take sides, they would do their own research and due diligence, instead of being spoon-fed the "paradigm of popularity". You can bet those in the AIDS industry are coming unhinged due to this film! I would be too if I were in their shoes. Imagine what it would be like if tomorrow, everything HIV=AIDS collapsed. To be blunt, there's just TOO MANY PEOPLE MAKING TOO MUCH MONEY! It is what it is, they said what they said. It's tough to believe your entire world view has been built on a house of sand, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible, and most likely, probable. Truth is truth, no matter which way one tries to distort it. As for me and my house, I AM ALIVE! Please see my story here: www.myspace.com/rethinkaids Karri
Let me just say that before anyone has the right to comment on the film, HOUSE OF NUMBERS, they better have seen it first. Having watched the film several times, I can assure you that there is nothing "denialist" about it. The film simply offers new information and challenges its audience to think... think outside the box, outside of what has been drilled into our heads about HIV/AIDS for the last 20 plus years. You might be surprised what you'll learn, and you might even leave the theatre feeling a bit duped by what you've been told, and re-think what you thought you knew about HIV/AIDS. If you are able to look at it objectively, then you will discover that the documentary can be used as a tool to help inspire and empower those suffering from this horrible syndrome. Maybe there IS hope. Maybe it's not a death sentence after all. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, absolutely. But please do not ignorantly make accusations against something that you haven't even seen for yourself. Do yourself a favor and see HOUSE OF NUMBERS. It may just rock your world.
The white-haired person in your photo of the film set is David Rasnick, board member of "rethinking AIDS" and Peter Duesberg's colleague and co-author. If the film has no agenda, as Leung claims, what is Rasnick doing on the set? He just stopped by to say hello? Rasnick used to work for Matthias Rath in South Africa, where he was involved in conducting an illegal clinical trial in which individuals were asked to stop anti-HIV drugs and use Rath's vitamin concoctions instead. Several individuals died as a consequence. The South African court documents relating to the case can be found on the Treatment Action Campaign website.
Great comment Meghan. I hope to view the film soon. I just want everyone here to know that the hateful poster Seth Kalichman is the first to post on anything that has anything to do with the Rethinking AIDS movement. He is obviously paid to dissuade people to think for themselves. Mr Kalickman went as far as attending a Peter Duesburg conference under a fake name. Pitiful in my opinion. Joe Stokely
FWIW, as of 4 p.m. CST, what looks like the first sentence (without a period) is actually the print subhead of the article. Apologies to all.
Unfortunately, THINKING is OUTLAWED in the orthodox AIDS 'movement'. They all realize that if one actually thought for oneself, one would see the flaws in the paradigm loud and clear. That's why Seth and the others are on EVERY blog out there, trying to dissuade others from thinking. DON'T BE A LEMMING!
The AIDS industry is one of the most insidious and corrupt on earth. You're not permitted to say anything critical about AIDS without the pharma hacks and bloggers calling you a "Holocaust denialist." That tells you that they're incredibly defensive and have a great, great deal to lose. Congratulations for Brent Leung for putting BOTH sides, and especially the AIDS orthodoxy on screen to speak for themselves, and in doing so, to show how deeply conflicted and corrupted the industry is.
I'm quoting your article here: "Many scientists find these views so beneath contempt (and so beyond debate) that they don't warrant a response. But they're responding to House of Numbers, perhaps because the potential of film to reach and persuade a broad audience is so powerful. That's a huge lie, the AIDS industry spends a great deal of energy, time and money on people like Seth Kalichman and John P. Moore who single out each and every person in the world who writes or talks about AIDS, and threatens their jobs and reputations with slander and libel. The AIDS industry is incredibly active in suppressing any reasonable conversation about itself, because it is so immensely corrupt and dishonest. If it were like a normal industry it would have to take its lumps, like the health industry did when Michael Moore made SICKO, or when Frontline makes a film about the Bush administration or the Iraq war.
I also want to know if the writer of this article actually SAW the movie? He allows it to be compared to "Triumph of the Will." Another Nazi comparison! Is anyone allowed to be critical of the AIDS industry, or will you just call everyone "Nazis" and "Holocaust denialists" in order to frighten people from thinking and speaking openly? What a sham! Shame on the author and the Nashville Scene for their hate speech.
I am waiting to see the film with great anticipation. I cannot and will not comment on its contents (like others have without seeing it) with the exception of what I have viewed on the official website. To me the list of interviewees seems very impressive. I would like to ask SETH if he has seen it. I would also like to ask what makes it a crockumentary? Is it simply because he disagrees with the contents. The comment by NM, "If the film has no agenda, as Leung claims, what is Rasnick doing on the set?" Go to http://www.houseofnumbers.com/image-galleries and you will see the director posing with Peter Piot, Robert Gallo and many other "credible scientists." He is also on the set with Zackie Achmat. I will follow up on Megan's comment. Have you seen the film NM or are you just talking to create your own controversy?
When Hamlet observed that Queen Gertrude “doth protest too much,” the audience immediately understood how her behavior exposed her real nature. Like Queen Gertrude, Seth Kalichman, Daniel Kuritzkes, and Jeanne Bergman protest not like a scientist, but like someone in possession of someone else’s wallet. But because Dr. Bergman’s a PhD (and you aren’t), she expects you to not believe what is apparent to any sentient being. So when Dr. Bergman called one panelist "a fucking liar," her behavior illustrated something more akin to being caught with her hands in someone else's pants than a real scientist who easily defends her position easily proven science. What fascinates me most about HIV/AIDS is not the mountains of research that only ASSUME HIV attacks cells and causes AIDS, but of the behavior of scientists who rely on continued funding from taxpayers and the pharmaceutical industry. Unlike normal criminals who sometimes try to mask their contempt for snitches, the beneficiaries of HIV/AIDS funding have no compunction to declare their open contempt of any taxpayer who dares to question how our money is being spent. The fact that all HIV/AIDS funding is built upon Dr. Robert Gallo’s unproven claims (that HIV attack cells and causes AIDS) and was later found guilty of scientific misconduct… http://www.cwbpi.com/AIDS/AidsDocD.pdf … raises questions that these scientists hate being asked. The fact that the journal Science published his reports before they were ever peer reviewed also raises significant questions: http://www.semmelweis.org/2008/12/09/ssi-endorses-1984-science-report-retraction As a career investigator who only recently began to examine the conflicts related to the HIV/AIDS, I am impressed by Mr. Leung’s ability to show the world who these scientists are - in their own words. House of Numbers show that, indeed, they doth protest too much, methinks.
Did you notice where the name-calling is coming from? The rethinkers/dissenters are mannerly and in control, while the ol' medical community is busy swearing and name-calling.
Seth Kalichman wrote, "There is no debate about what causes AIDS among medical researchers." This is a carefully-worded piece of propaganda, because if you are in the medical profession and try to debate the causation of AIDS, you are ridiculed and kicked out of the AIDS research field. Therefore the statement sort of makes itself become true, if only on a technicality. There is tons of debate about all aspects of AIDS, from HIV, to the progressions of disease, to the tests, to the treatments, etc, but according to Kalichman (and whoever he actually gets his talking points from) this debate is not occurring among "medical researchers" and therefore does not exist. Nice try, but some of us would love to keep hearing both sides. Thanks.
The documentary was very well done. Oh if we could only see the backstabbing and finger pointing of the AIDS industry when they got wind of this movie! It's a must see and hopefully the beginning of the unraveling of this 25 year deception.
