BBC opinion on Liam Scheff's journalism
Re: Guinea Pig Kids
"Following a complaint, an investigation by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit has identified serious failings with this programme and ruled that some of the online material based on it was misleading."
"A correction will be published on bbc.co.uk, as part of the pages on which the material complained of appears, with a link to this summary. In addition, the ECU will contact other websites featuring the material in order to draw their attention to its ruling. The management of BBC News is addressing the issues arising from the ruling for the commissioning and supervision of independent productions of this kind."
Interestingly a private letter from the BBC notes not only the difficulty of convincing people who are inherently biased that they are wrong (i.e. AIDS denialists), but also talks about exploring copyright breaches by those who might have propagated the video online without permission.
While it doesn't fully appreciate the fact that AIDS denialists used the HIV+ foster kids at the ICC in a cynical attempt to promote their own views and pseudoscience, the findings do at least recognize that an attempt was made along those lines.
The really sad thing is that it took the BBC so long to make these statements, and in fact that the programme should never have been allowed to have been made, never mind aired. It's a shameful example of journalism of the worst kind. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. By all means criticize and comment, whether about HIV/AIDS, clinical trials, stem cell research, or whatever, but do so from a position of truth and honesty. Blatantly lying about something, or simply not telling the truth because it conflicts with your story, is simply inexcusable.
"Following a complaint, an investigation by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit has identified serious failings with this programme and ruled that some of the online material based on it was misleading."
"A correction will be published on bbc.co.uk, as part of the pages on which the material complained of appears, with a link to this summary. In addition, the ECU will contact other websites featuring the material in order to draw their attention to its ruling. The management of BBC News is addressing the issues arising from the ruling for the commissioning and supervision of independent productions of this kind."
Interestingly a private letter from the BBC notes not only the difficulty of convincing people who are inherently biased that they are wrong (i.e. AIDS denialists), but also talks about exploring copyright breaches by those who might have propagated the video online without permission.
While it doesn't fully appreciate the fact that AIDS denialists used the HIV+ foster kids at the ICC in a cynical attempt to promote their own views and pseudoscience, the findings do at least recognize that an attempt was made along those lines.
The really sad thing is that it took the BBC so long to make these statements, and in fact that the programme should never have been allowed to have been made, never mind aired. It's a shameful example of journalism of the worst kind. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. By all means criticize and comment, whether about HIV/AIDS, clinical trials, stem cell research, or whatever, but do so from a position of truth and honesty. Blatantly lying about something, or simply not telling the truth because it conflicts with your story, is simply inexcusable.
posted by Bennett at 4:36 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Nick,
I wonder if you'll let comments go on this one? I've posted on every opinion you've posted.
Nick, you're a member of a group called "Aidstruth.org". This is the self-same group that lobbied one woman in BBC legal, threatening her with being labeled a "holocaust denialist" by... you and your cronies, unless they "apologized" for whatever you consider wrong with the documentary "Guinea Pig Kids."
You have such a crush on me, it's just scary...because you seem to think it's "Liam Scheff's journalism" that the "BBC" denigrated.
What they actually did was called a "capitulation." You can look up the word, and you'll find in the actions of one or two suits in legal, at the BBC, overseeing this matter, a textbook description of that process.
The big joke is that nothing I pointed out was disputed, at least, not with any evidence.
The state of NY, in conjunction with the NIH, and many drug companies, was and is using NY city drug orphans in Aids drug clinical trials.
Nowhere is that disputed in the "apology."
So, chalk one up for my journalism. This is the story I brought to the world, because, Nick, it was true, and because it is a breach of ethics since Nuremberg.
Second - the drugs used are highly toxic - FDA Black Box labeled drugs, and these drugs have debilitating effects on the children, including death.
And... this is not disputed, anywhere, because it can't be, because it's recorded and reported throughout the drug and medical literature. (Look up "FDA Black Box Label", doctor Nick, and you may learn something about the profession you're defending with such servility).
Children die at the ICC, and died on these drugs. If you want to dispute this, please help ICC cough up their unadulterated medical records. They won't do it.
But mothers, nurses and childcare workers from the place list the names of a dozen children who died - three while my investigation was going. I wrote about one I met personally, called Seon, and another who's story was related by a half-dozen former or current employees, named Shyanne, who went blind after weeks on the drugs, having previously been drug-niave her entire life.
She had a stroke, went blind, and was dead within a few months, according to all sources in the place.
This is disputed nowhere, by ICC, by Columbia Pres, or by your illustrious, idiotic self.
What else...
Look, you and your loving goons convinced a couple lawyers to squeeze out a very limited 'apology', read apeasement, so that they could get you off their backs.
And it worked.
Meanwhile, the Aids circus continues on, and continues to crumble, as even your entrenched experts are agreeing, quite openly, that the best thing for Africans given this arbitrary brand-name stigma of a disease title, is not more drugs, but clean water and infrastructure development.
Nick, I've read your posts, and I have tried to put a thing or two up on them over the years. But I usually give up after awhile, because you won't let any argument reach the surface of that wormy, rotten thing you call a brain.
Forgive me, but, man, where's your mind, and your soul in all of this?
These children were protected wards of the state, and you, and your ilk, used them like so many toss-away sponges, to soak up the effluence of your drug-experiment failures.
Left-over Nevirapine, Left-over AZT, left-over Bactrim and Kaletra, shoved down the mouths of these children - our children, Nick, the children of NYC, of the United States - until they were sick, or crippled, or dead.
You want to crow over this, be my guest, but you're crying a victory for hell.
You want to debate, to show the frailty of your heart and soul, and the debilitated state of your spirit and mind, you know where to reach me.
Regards,
Liam Scheff
http://liamscheff.com
Liam I appreciate the visit - it's been a long time coming.
You write nice prose, but it lacks facts, accuracy and objectivity. If you were accurate in any of the claims you made you could rightly be held up as a champion for the people - instead you merely join the ranks of AIDS denialists with an agenda using pseudoscience and cherry-picking to bolster your argument.
Black Box is nothing exceptional - but you're a journalist not a medic or scientist, so you don't know that. Purified Water carries a toxicity warning if you purchase it from a laboratory supply company - instructions include such gems as "if spilled in the eye, rinse well with water".
AZT is far from perfect, I have never said it is - I have pointed out that it was canned due to a lack of toxicity, not a high toxicity as incorrectly assumed by Duesberg all those years ago. You, as with all the other dissident sheep, swallowed the story because it sounded good. Who needs facts when you have a good story to tell?
The literature tells us that since the advent of HAART more kids are living longer with HIV than ever before, flying in the face of your dubious anecdotes. I'll see your handful of stories and raise you the stories of thousands of kids who would, statistically, have died just a few short decades ago from their HIV.
I don't debate denialists Liam, I just correct them.
Cheers
Bennett
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