A podcast about the automation of everything. Host Jennifer Strong and the team at MIT Technology Review look at what it means to entrust artificial intelligence with our most sensitive decisions.

How covid conspiracy theories led to an alarming resurgence in AIDS denialism

January 08, 2025 0:34:26 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

Podcaster Joe Rogan, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and football quarterback Aaron Rodgers are all helping revive AIDS denialism—a false collection of theories arguing either that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or that there’s no such thing as HIV at all.  


These ideas were initially promoted back in the 1980s and ’90s by a cadre of scientists from unrelated fields, as well as many science-adjacent figures and self-proclaimed investigative journalists. But as more and more evidence stacked up against them, and as more people with HIV and AIDS started living longer lives thanks to effective new treatments, their claims largely fell out of favor. At least until the coronavirus arrived.


This story was written by Anna Merlan and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com