Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories and Pseudoscience in a Post-COVID World
English | July 23, 2026 | ISBN-10: 1071652605 | 387 pages| PDF (True) |
Paralleling the discovery of HIV and the rise of the
AIDS pandemic, a flock of naysayers has dedicated itself to replacing
facts with medical misinformation. Denying AIDS returns in a radically
revised second edition at a moment when denialism has moved from the
margins to the center of political and institutional power. In this
uncompromising new edition, psychologist and public-health researcher
Seth Kalichman exposes how AIDS denialism adapts to new crises, new
audiences, and new technologies. The COVID pandemic did not invent
denialism -- it legitimized it. Arguments once dismissed as
pseudoscience and conspiracy theories are amplified by political
leaders. Denialism is now embedded in the broader anti-science movement
that shakes the foundations of public health.
This is not a neutral
accounting of competing ideas. It is a psychological autopsy of
denialism and why it persists. Kalichman shines a bright light on the
destructive appeal of denialists – from professors and politicians to
celebrities and rock stars. He exposes the threats posed by denialists
-- from discredited quacks to the Secretary of Health and Human
Services.