Press:

By Kirk Honeycutt

"The Other Side of AIDS" makes a substantial contribution to the international debate about the AIDS epidemic. Robin Scovill's film presents new, dissident voices to this debate, skeptical voices that challenge the conventional wisdom that HIV causes AIDS, that HIV tests are valid and that without taking "cocktails" of powerful drugs those testing HIV-positive are doomed to early death. Scovill's wife, Christine Maggione, has herself tested positive. Yet along with her husband and two children, she continues to lead a healthy, active life without taking AIDS medication.

As radical as the ideas advanced in this movie are, the documentary itself is conventional if not pedestrian. The film consists mostly of talking heads and printed information onscreen. Nor are opposing viewpoints given much space. Two AIDS researchers are allowed to debunk the dissident movement, but mostly the stridency of their position and not their scientific arguments comes through.

The heart of the dissident argument focuses on the lack of scientific data to explain how HIV causes AIDS, the inability of the HIV test to really find the virus in a person's body and the toxicity of the current AIDS drugs that can themselves cause death. In some cases, children are removed from their families if the parents do not wish to give such highly dangerous meds to their children.

Scovill doesn't come down hard on the dissidents' side. Rather the film suggests the need for more dialogue, especially when $150 billion in federally funded research over the past 20 years has brought us no closer to an HIV antidote.

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