BBC Apologizes for AIDS Denialist Documentary

Three years after airing a documentary that claimed HIV-positive orphans were exploited in clinical trials of AIDS drugs, the BBC has apologized. The apology is a response to complaints by several prominent AIDS scientists that the video, Guinea Pig Kids, primarily aired the views of AIDS denialists, who don’t believe that the HIV virus causes AIDS.“The BBC has produced thousands of hours of current affairs programming since 2004. This was a blip, which is why it’s been taken so seriously,” says BBC spokesman Mark Ogle. The BBC has formed a committee to investigate “why these editorial lapses occurred,” Ogle says, and the committee’s findings will eventually be “prominently displayed” on the documentary’s BBC website.Read more at...Nature Medicine, December 2007.