Infectious Myth - Positive Hell with Joan Shenton - 06/11/14

David talks with veteran film maker Joan Shenton about her new joint product with Andi Reiss, “Positive Hell” (http://immunity.org.uk), about a group of Spanish HIV-positives, who have either never taken AIDS drugs or took them only for a short time. All were severe IV drug addicts or, in the case of their medical advisor, Dr. Manuel Garrido, a severe alcoholic. All of them conquered their addiction, and reclaimed their health, eventually rejecting their AIDS diagnosis.

 

The interviews in this new video include a woman who went on to get married and have a child with her new husband. Despite more than two decades of unprotected sex, he is still HIV-negative.

 

The story of Dr. Garrido is interesting because he is not just the medical advisor, but he has lived his advice, as he is also HIV-positive, and has also declined AIDS drugs.

 

This should be the kind of hopeful story that will rock the world. But the experience of Joan Shenton shows that this will be difficult. Her career as a successful medical documentary producer was destroyed in the early 1990s after a documentary first won a major award and then was the subject of a “Star Chamber” investigation.

 

Joan is the instigator of the Immune Resource Foundation website (http://immunity.org.uk) that has a huge archive of critical AIDS documentaries and other video footage. Also with Andi Reiss she recently co-produced the film “Positively False: Birth of a Heresy” (http://positivelyfalsemovie.com) and is republishing her book this year, also called “Positively False”.