SYNOPSICS
House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic (2009) is a English movie. Brent Leung has directed this movie. Luc Montagnier,Francois Barre-Sinnousi,Anthony Fauci,Kenneth Cole are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2009. House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic (2009) is considered one of the best Documentary movie in India and around the world.
What is HIV? What is AIDS? What is being done to cure it? These questions sent Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung on a worldwide journey, from the highest echelons of the medical research establishment to the slums of South Africa, where death and disease are the order of the day. In this up-to-the-minute documentary, he observes that although AIDS has been front-page news for over 28 years, it is barely understood. Despite the great effort, time, and money spent, no cure is in sight. Born in 1980 (on the cusp of the epidemic), Leung reveals a research establishment in disarray, and health policy gone tragically off course. Gaining access to a remarkable array of the most prominent and influential figures in the field -- among them the co-discoverers of HIV, presidential advisors, Nobel laureates, and the Executive Director of UNAIDS, as well as survivors and activists -- his restrained approach yields surprising revelations and stunning contradictions. The HIV/AIDS story is being ...
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House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic (2009) Reviews
How many people will die because of this?
Its like one of these "condoms do not prevent AIDS" or "teach the controversy" moments. The most selective reporting you will ever see.. Picking out the least credible and dishonest people out there who want to make a name for themselves and earn some money and cutting out awkward peaces of interviews with those rare experts in ti. Crackpot journalists, pseudo scientists, and most of all conspiracy theorists.. Exploiting poor African countries and its people, poorly qualified medical workers, those rare lucky individuals whose immune system successfully holds the virus at bay, etc.. Selecting out all these and all the possibly imaginable theories that could support his agenda.. Why is there no cure? What is that supposed to mean?... Why is there no cure for Alzheimers, or cancer? If your BS alarm didn't go off at least a hundred times, them I am sorry, but you are naive and gullible. This Brent Leung is a criminal in my eyes.. I have seen references to this documentary on many sites now, which means people are actually believing this nonsense and it certainly means that there will indirectly be many lives lost because of this. This guy didn't even spare the poor guy that went with his agenda in desperation... "This guy is taking HIV medicine" and a few seconds later "He died shortly after recording this video", therefore don't take your medicine or you will die... Either homophobia is behind this, or some "christian family values", but certainly that deadly sort of inhumane capitalism and greed. Just because one is allowed to make money by selling lies and dangerous speculations, some lowlife will inevitably grab the opportunity.. Its the most dishonest thing you will see, and all because this virus is really complicated and resilient, more than anything we previously encountered. It mutates so quickly that there are virtually millions of different strains out there.. Of course we had a lot of problems detecting and fighting it and of course scientists want as much money as they can get for fighting it. Of course you will find people that were misdiagnosed, etc, etc. Eh, it just makes me angry. This Brent Leung made a career and a lot of money out of this, while those crackpot wannabe "scientists" and "journalists" in it got a little attention and opened doors into conspiracy theory world..They will never see or hear about those ones that will die as a result of this documentary.
Absolutely Ridiculous Documentary
It seems that one of Brent Leung's motives for this documentary is to convince us that HIV does not cause AIDS. Ridiculous. Dr. Ronald Swanstrom, retrovirologist, discovered and isolated the glycol Gag proteins of HIV. (Glyco-Gag proteins can be considered as nonstructural retroviral proteins.) This allowed other scientists to create the antiretrovirals that target these HIV proteins and keep the virus from replicating. If there was no HIV virus then these same antiretrovirals would be ineffective. Even a grade schooler could figure this out-if there is no virus then the medicine to treat that virus would be useless. Mr. Leung seems to be proud of the fact that after his documentary was released, some countries cut their HIV funds. Why would any decent human being be proud of that? The drug companies probably love him. They can use this documentary as an excuse to get the pressure off of them to provide the people of Africa with free antiretrovirals. I wonder if Mr Leung didn't have a hinden agenda. Perhaps he is a member of one of those religious groups who believe gays and people who have sex before marriage should be punished.
Deceptive and compelling obfuscation
On the plus side, it's a wonderful demonstration of how compelling blatantly incorrect theories can be, using misquoted experts and ignoring well-known contradictions. In addition to the glaring omissions that JC from the UK pointed out here on 3 March 2010, many more can be found on Wikipedia, which denialists shockingly don't seem to be keen on "correcting": See WikiPedia's "AIDS_denialism" and "Misconceptions_about_HIV_and_AIDS". For example, the film points to the theory that Poppers were the root cause of Kaposi's Sarcoma in the original US gay community, but those Wikipedia pages point to real studies that conclusively disprove that theory. The film does not mention this. Also, two of the interviewed experts (Constantine and Weiss) explain how they were completely misquoted and misrepresented: See google for "constantine and weiss pinpoint misrepresentations" The idea of inaccurate HIV testing seemed to play a large role in the film, even though studies show it is 99.9% accurate. (I'm not sure if this includes PCR tests, which perhaps are 100% conclusive?) The film does not mention this. Also, the film refers to Padian's study on HIV transmission, but completely misrepresents it, as she herself explains: (See: "HIV heterosexual transmission and the Padian paper myth". Basically, she says the study was specifically analyzing safe-sex interventions (condom usage in couples), and simply showed the effectiveness of condoms, not the non-transmissibility of the virus. The film deceptively hides this piece of information.) The film is highly deceptive, and outright false on most of it's critical points. But it was an entertaining and compelling narrative while it lasted.
They're all dead
The two women that are featured in this film that are "healthy" have both died. Both died of AIDS related illnesses. Despite what the deniers are telling you, AIDS is real. Just about everything in this film has been reputed in some form or another. The director got a bunch of footage to support a denialist agenda and edited it together to make it seem like there is this some sort of debate in the scientific community. There isn't. Both of the two major researchers that he got interviews with have gone on record saying that their comments were taken out of context, or that the footage was edited in such a fashion to make it seem that they disagreed when in fact the opposite is true. The director wants to claim he's neutral yet he's done denialist films before. Most of the theories he's mentioning have been disproved for years but denialists claim them to support their position. Sure, there was debate twenty years ago, but not now. Medicine evolves over time. This film is just sad, and it's going to get people killed.
An "objective" documentary? Read this first
I'm a journalist who has spent some time investigating AIDS denialism and those who have been affected by it. This film is very dangerous, and will likely lead to many lost lives. Since it would take too long here to debunk the various outrageous claims made in the film, let me address just two points it conveniently glosses over: First, Christine Maggiore, the HIV+ activist who has avoided antiretroviral drugs with supposedly no ill consequences, is dead. She died of AIDS-related pneumonia, aged 52. Her daughter Eliza Jane, whose contraction of HIV was undoubtedly helped by Maggiore's refusal of antiretrovirals and breast feeding, also died of AIDS-related pneumonia, aged 3. Second, Kim Marie Bannon, another of the film's HIV+ activists who have avoided antiretroviral drugs with supposedly no ill consequences, is presently residing in a care home with HIV encephalitis. She is dying of AIDS. Why are these fairly important facts pushed to one side? Perhaps they got in the way of creating such an "objective" film.