In recent years, the AIDS industry has spawned an entire new field of study devoted to a phenomenon they call "AIDS Denialism." “AIDS denialist” is a misnomer for people who question different aspects of the theory that HIV causes AIDS.

The War on AIDS Denialism began as pure activism in response to a perceived threat to the free flow of AIDS drugs worldwide. Various pressure groups and "anti-denialist” websites, such as AIDstruth.org, were created to call "AIDS professionals" to arms and counter the "denialists" — silence them where possible.

However, there comes a point in all activism, especially political activism, where the need arises for the formulation of a self-serving theoretical foundation, and this inevitability led to the birth of AIDS Denialism as an academic study.  Scientists, lawyers, academics and professional writers have published scores of articles on such worthy topics as the parallels between AIDS Denialism and Holocaust Denialism, the moral implications of dissent, and constitutional amendments to criminalise opposition to mainstream HIV science. AIDS Denialism is in this sense understood as propaganda in support of a racist or homophobic agenda, motivated by "pure evil."

Mark Wainberg, Director of McGill University AIDS Center, and Prof John Moore of Weill Cornell University are the most prominent champions of the view that dissenting speech should be criminalised. But other, less ham-handed anti-denialists have understood that pathologising dissent is not as controversial and, viewed historically, a more subtle political weapon. The mentally ill makes a poor martyr because she is silenced in the name of compassion rather than repression.

Seth Kalichman is a social psychologist and author of several volumes on AIDS. In his new book, Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy, he is offering us a happy marriage between criminalising and pathologising by criminalising the leaders and pathologising the followers:

"Still, it is important that I say that the denialists who interacted with me did not seem evil. They are deeply skeptical misguided and others seem to foolishly believe that they understand everything there was to know about AIDS. But I did not find them evil in the sense they were intent on harming people, even though their actions surely are. Of course, those I have come to see as malevolent — the vitamin pushers, conmen, and angry academics are the ones who did not respond to my attempts."

I have also tried to avoid ad homonym attacks by focusing more on what the denialists are saying than who they are. But that too was difficult. This book is a psychological perspective on denialism, so the denialists themselves are central to the story.

Kalichman has obviously gone to extraordinary lengths to preserve the even-handedness of the objective observer, but he is also one of those rare scientists who are able to reinvent a genre when the unique character of the subject-matter requires it. I have read a lot of stuff written by psychologists on the Hitlers and Jack the Rippers of the world, and I have never come across a professional who felt compelled to call his profiling of such people "ad homonym attacks." Was I, the AIDS Denialist, perhaps worse than Hitler? My head was spinning.

But  Kalichman soon redefines his mission:

An autopsy?! Does this mean the war is over and that AIDS Denialism is dead? Could the blindfolded man on the cover be the last Denialist Within on his way to the firing squad? With bated breath I skipped through endless definitions of "denialism" to the finely distilled result of the autopsy:

It is not clear how homophobia fits in with mistrust of the establishment in the suspicious mind, but if Kalichman says so, and he says it repeatedly, it probably is so. Nevertheless, I felt disappointed: Am I no more than an ordinary homophobic conspiracy theory consumer after all? Truth to tell I had already come to expect more of Prof. Kalichman.

Suspicious even of myself, I decided to put Kalichman's analysis to the test by asking my astrologer if he could recognise this pinpoint psycho-profile of the archetypal AIDS Denialist in my birth horoscope. The result was astounding; not only did my astrologer find many of the most criminal qualities represented in my  horoscope, he also found them in an impressive 97.4% of 11 control horoscopes randomly chosen among members of Congress. Was this mere chance, or could it be a government conspiracy?

Kalichman's answer seems to be affirmative, depending of course on which government we are talking about. Who but a denialist would violate the intuitively a priori principle according to which mistrust of AIDS drug-friendly governments is a sure sign of the pathological conspiracy theorist, whereas drug-skeptical governments, like the one led by Thabo Mbeki in South Africa, are self-evidently corrupt to the core and subject to the subversive influence of denialist cabals?

According to Kalichman and fellow trackers of denialist activities, denialists ply their trade across the ideological spectrum, from global warming skeptics to animal rights proponents. The omnipresence of denialists is a bit of a wet blanket, but Kalichman doesn't let his readers down entirely. The parallels between Holocaust Denialism and AIDS Denialism are particularly striking, he tells us. Both groups think they are the sole bearers of truth; both groups deny their opponents basic civil liberties while believing their own are being infringed on, and both groups engage in hateful character assassination and name calling. Other eerie parallels include both groups making documentaries and publishing magazines. 

That clearly is shocking behaviour. In the face of such perversity and rampant paranoia, it is readily understandable why all objective scientists must make special provisions to include  “ad homonym" attacks and call for amendments to the Constitution, so that evil AIDS Denialist leaders can be imprisoned if they persist in their psychopathic plots against the world's minorities.

But terrifying as all of this is, it is not new. Kalichman had promised me that I would be central to this story. I wanted to read about ME. So where was I? Where were the case studies, the interview sessions, the AIDS Denialist on the couch — all the juicy parts of psychology? I could find none of it.

In the book’s preface, Kalichman tells of his harrowing descent into the wacky world of AIDS Denialism. Always fearing for his sanity, he courageously embarked on personal visits and maintained "complicated" (i.e. pseudonymous) relationships with various denialists. So why had they all vanished from the book and been replaced throughout with run-of-the-mill debunking of perceived pseudoscience? Kalichman states explicitly that he is not interested in the scientific debate since his side is self-evidently right. He is, like me, fascinated by the denialists themselves. But all that remains in the book of the carefully cultivated complicated relationships are a few scattered quotes, most of them taken from the Internet.

In a last desperate attempt I went to the lengthy section in honour of Peter Duesberg, the Godfather of AIDS Denialism. Kalichman proudly features a photograph of himself standing next to Duesberg; proof of his bona fides as embedded reporter. Could it be that Duesberg had agreed to let Kalichman perform an autopsy on him? Had Duesberg conveyed to Kalichman his entrenched mistrust of the government, Africans, homosexuals and his dear wife — perhaps even that he had been dabbling  in animal rights? That would be a scoop.

Alas, no such thing was forthcoming. Instead Kalichman abandons everything he has been building  up to in the first part of the book and diagnoses Duesberg as "bitter". Shoot, bitter wasn't even on the infinite list of denialist flaws! 

Even more inexplicably, Kalichman devotes most of this section to arguing that Duesberg is not the victim of a government conspiracy. Why does that need to be argued? Doesn't it go without saying that conspiracies are figments of overwrought imaginations? And why is it imperative on Kalichman to reclassify Duesberg psychologically as an angry-for-no-good-reason academic? Is it to ensure that Duesberg can be charged criminally? Had the lawyer personality now taken over from the psychologist in this schizophrenically composed book? I don't know, but I do know that next time I am looking to get psychoanalysed I'll go back to my astrologer.

Looking back, I think I can guess Kalichman's secret. Sometime in the course of his netherworld journey, he discovered that AIDS Denialism was a paranoid fantasy, a figment of an overwrought imagination bearing no resemblance to the real people with whom he imagines he has been interacting. The realisation never quite surfaced in Kalichman's conscious mind — and besides he had already made his book deal — but once upon a midnight dreary he awoke from some fanciful dream and could sleep no more. Instead he went and pondered his quaint volume of pure abstraction. He pondered his book and he pondered his shadow floating on the floor. Then, not knowing why, not knowing how, but knowing that he must, he wrote a single line of neither reason nor rhyme:

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