Thursday, June 3, 2010

Same Old Deniers

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2010/05/29/warming_deniers_hark_back_to_aids_skeptics_of_80s/

Today's climate change deniers remind professor of biochemistry at Tufts University School of Medicine Larry Feig of the AIDs deniers of yesteryear:

" Global warming deniers take solace in the fact that some established atmospheric scientists (albeit an extremely small proportion of the total) support their cause. This reminds me of the 1980s, when a few prominent virologists, spearheaded by the National Academy of Sciences member Peter Deusberg, contradicted the vast majority of biomedical scientists by claiming that the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, was not the cause of AIDS.

Just like global warming skeptics and the right-wing media today, these scientists insisted that the public was being duped by those with a self-serving agenda and that vast amounts of money were being wasted on a flawed hypothesis. They prepared a slick video to support their argument that sounded convincing at the time to lay audiences (search the Internet for “HIV = AIDS: Fact or Fraud?’’). Even non-scientists viewing this video today can appreciate that the ideas it expresses have been completely discredited.

Fortunately, the opinion of the majority of scientists won out, and AIDS is now a highly treatable disease rather than the death sentence it was in the 1980s. Hopefully, a similar successful outcome will prevail in preventing the long-term effects of global warming."


Who wants to be many of these might be the same people and groups?

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