MovieChat Forums > House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic (2009) Discussion > The Trailer is the Problem

The Trailer is the Problem

posted 14 years ago by epetkau
4 replies | jump to latest

I know nothing about this movie other than what I have seen from the trailer, and by making people testing for HIV look like idiots with some guy throwing a Gervais style glance towards the camera (cheap), and all this conspiracy type music and dialogue really doesn't help towards the problem that is still there. People are still dying and from the organizations that I've been working with in Uganda the outcome has resulted in a community being brought together whether or not HIV is real or not. This a terrible approach and the trailer i feel is scaring people away from what should still be seen as a good cause not a conspiracy. There is liberal and then there is nonsense, that trailer felt like nonsense.

[–] justcallmedave 14 years ago

I just watched the trailer.. and i'm not even sure of what i just watched.. i thought i got a good sense of where they were going with this when they made it seem as tho all these issues that are incurables are being lumped in to one of the effects of HIV/AIDS.. but thne they went in to this tangent of the testing.. and now i'm just thoroughly confused..

could some explain the conspiracy they are trying to tackle? that HIV/AIDS is a farce to give whatever medical issue they dont understand a name.. isnt it?

[–] quindawgmastizzle 14 years ago

That was infuriating. Those questions DO aid in the diagnosis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem#Example_1:_Drug_testing

So consider a test that is 99% accurate (1% of the time yields a false positive or false negative), but the actual incidence of HIV considering risk factors in a certain population is only 1%.
Then ~1% of those tested will have HIV and will test positive, while ~1% of those tested will test positive despite not having HIV, resulting in a true false positive rate of 50%, which would necessitate retesting.
If the natural rate of HIV is more like 30%, then this effect isn't as strong.

In conclusion, the trailer alone is deceitful and dangerous

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] king_freddie-1 13 years ago

You are a complete idiot. You are answering on every thread with your ignorant denailist propaganda.

The 99% accuracy number you can find on the wiki page for AIDS tests.

"...the use of repeatedly reactive enzyme immunoassay followed by confirmatory Western blot or immunofluorescent assay remains the standard method for diagnosing HIV-1 infection. A large study of HIV testing in 752 U.S. laboratories reported a sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 98.5% for enzyme immunoassay, and studies in U.S. blood donors reported specificities of 99.8% and greater than 99.99%. With confirmatory Western blot, the chance of a false-positive identification in a low-prevalence setting is about 1 in 250 000 (95% CI, 1 in 173 000 to 1 in 379 000)."

Its only the rapid tests used by some poor countrys (like the ones shown in this docu) that are somewhat unreliable. And thats why they always use other methods to confirm a positive rapid test.

I was a intravenus drug user for almost 15 years and when you pick up needles in the needle exchange program you do obligatory AIDS and Hep C tests. And NEVER have I had a false postive. And I have never heard of anyone of my friends having had a false postive neither.

And you dont need to fill in questions like they did in the docu, thats only with the rapid tests and those are not in use in serious clinics.

These AIDS deniers are dangerous. They have been responsible for so many deaths.
Maybe you should have a look at this page:

http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/denialists/dead_denialists

Quite a long list for such a small fringe group. Even one of the ppl in this docu died. But they said it wasnt AIDS related.. yeah right.
But the most horrific thing is the child who died bcoz the parents were denilists and denied the child medication. First the mother denied taking medz while she was pregnant so she wouldnt pass on the virus, and then denied the child medz when it was born with HIV.
If the mother wasnt already dead from AIDS she should have been convicted of murder.

This movie is in the same category as Expelled (the movie that bitch about how intelligent design isnt accepted as a science).

Hey, if HIV isnt dangerous why didnt this Leung dude infect himself with it to prove his point? That would have been fun to watch. If he would have done that I might even have paid to see this piece of crap.

So to all people dont buy the snake oil these people are selling. I noticed the whole message board was full of AIDS deniers. Get informed yourself instead. Read the pages on wiki on aids, aidstesting and aids deniers. And go to aidstruth.org and read there.

aids deniers, intelligent design, cold fusion... its all pseudoscience. ID and cold fusion might be harmless pseudoscience but thats not the case with aids deniers. It might keeping people from taking their medz, and in the process killing them. Or their children.