The Truth About HIV/AIDS Denialism

Does HIV really exist? And if it does exist, can it cause harm? They're ridiculous questions, of course: If you're reading this, there's a 99.9 percent chance you agree that HIV does exist and it can cause harm. Yet there are a small group of people who remain willfully oblivious to the facts about HIV. They call themselves "AIDS dissidents." We in the HIV community call them "denialists." The question is: Why do these people continue to deny the truth about HIV and AIDS in the face of overwhelming evidence? In the first of a special two-part episode of our This Month in HIV podcast series, we ask these questions of clinical psychologist Seth Kalichman, Ph.D., who went underground to determine first-hand what makes AIDS denialists tick.