On the other hand

Having helped draw attention in my last post to some flawed reporting on HIV and AIDS, I thought it only fair to do the same for some good journalism on the subject. The latest edition of The Walrus, which is sometimes thought of as the Canadian analog of Harper's, includes Brent Preston's informative "The HIV Resurgence."

Whereas Celia Farber's Harper's feature implies that HIV infection rates are grossly overestimated (largely because African clinics that can't afford proper testing apply a postive diagnosis based solely on symptomatic criteria), Preston writes that the opposite is really the case, at least in Canada:

It is accepted that testing data underestimate the extent of hiv
infection and so researchers must create epidemiological models to get
a better picture of the advance of the disease. Dr. Robert Remis of the
University of Toronto is a pre-eminent Canadian scientist in this
field. He has produced detailed models for Ontario, home to over 40
percent of Canadian hiv cases, and his
assessment is blunt: "The bottom line is that the epidemic is not under
control. Prevalence [the total number of people living with hiv]
increased 36 percent from 1998 to 2003." Remis's models indicate rising
rates of infection among four distinct groups: immigrants from Africa
and the Caribbean, homosexual males, intravenous-drug users, and
heterosexual Canadians.

I'm still thinking about some of the issues raised by Farber's piece and the response from scientists like Tara Smith, and may soon revisit the debate over HIV/AID denialism.