Celia Farber Biography

Celia Ingrid Farber is an American print journalist and author, best known for her part in the campaign which denies that AIDS is an infectious disease. She has also covered a range of topics for magazines including Spin, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Harper's, Interview, Salon, Gear, New York Press, Media Post, The New York Post, Sunday Herald, and was particularly noted for a report on OJ Simpson's post-trial life in 1998. Farber is the daughter of radio talk pioneer Barry Farber.

Work on AIDS

In 1987 Farber began promoting the AIDS denialist view that HIV does not cause AIDS. She wrote and edited a monthly feature column in Spin magazine entitled "Words From The Front" from 1987 to 1995, which was focused on the denialist agenda. She says that her interest in the field was sparked when, as an intern at Spin, she heard of AL-721, a lipid mixture derived from eggs that was proposed as an anti-HIV drug. She stated, "I was very young, and I believed instantly in the mythological fantasy that there was a quote 'cure' for AIDS that was being suppressed by the government and by the pharmaceutical industry."

Farber's work emphasizes the negative role she feels is played by pharmaceutical side effects in the health of many AIDS patients, and she has avidly promoted the claims of Peter Duesberg and others who argue that HIV is harmless. Although Farber is not a scientist, she also describes what she considers to be flaws in the methodology used by some early HIV and AIDS researchers. In her view, the American scientific community and the National Institutes of Health are "totalitarian" structures.

Her 2006 Harper's magazine article, "Out of Control: AIDS And The Corruption of Medical Science", criticized the ethics and industry of antiretroviral drugs and favorably presented the scientifically discredited claim that HIV does not cause AIDS. In response to Farber's article, the Treatment Action Campaign, a South African group campaigning for greater access to HIV treatment, posted a 37-page rebuttal written by eight prominent AIDS researchers. The rebuttal described over 50 errors in Farber's article, ranging from misleading or false statements to implications of sinister motives without evidence.

Farber's article was widely criticized for its promotion of AIDS denialism. A New York Times op-ed described Farber's article as promoting "deadly quackery", while the Columbia Journalism Review wrote: "Next time, Harper's should be more careful about giving so much legitimacy"?15 pages of it"?to such an illegitimate and discredited idea." In response, Farber claimed that she did not endorse the Duesberg hypothesis and that she had approached the story as an objective journalist without a preconceived opinion, stating: "People can't distinguish, it seems, between describing dissent and being dissent." Her claim of objectivity was disputed, with critics pointing to Farber's long history of arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS. Farber also claimed that her article did not unduly disparage antiretroviral medication, writing that "...it does not, for example, say that all AIDS drugs are ghastly, or worthless." Farber also argued that, "...in each article where I have addressed HAART I have included, clearly, the fact that the regimens have absolutely helped people who are very sick." Again, her claims were disputed, with critics pointing to a number of prior writings by Farber in which she argues that HIV medications are deadly and ineffective.

In June 2006, Farber wrote an article in the independent paper Los Angeles City Beat in defense of Christine Maggiore, an HIV-positive AIDS denialist who avoided antiretrovirals during pregnancy and did not have her children tested for HIV. Maggiore's daughter, Eliza Jane, was found to be HIV-positive only after the three-year-old died of pneumonia as a complication of AIDS. Maggiore herself would die in 2008 at the age of 52 of pneumonia possibly related to HIV/AIDS.

The scientific accuracy and objectivity of Farber's articles has been widely disputed. Critics point to her favorable presentation of the denialist views of Peter Duesberg. The Duesberg hypothesis, which holds that HIV is a harmless "passenger" virus unrelated to AIDS except by association, has been examined and rejected by the medical and scientific communities.

A collection of her AIDS writings, Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS, was published in July 2006. Farber was one of the original signatories to the letter establishing the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis.

Other work

Farber describes herself as "a vocal and persistent critic of Political Correctness and the McCarthyism that reigned in Sexual Harassment law in the 1990s." During her time as a writer at Spin, Farber was romantically involved with the magazine's publisher, Bob Guccione, Jr. In 1994, a Spin employee filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Guccione, Jr. and the magazine, alleging sexual discrimination and favoritism. Farber was a key witness in the ensuing trial, as the prosecution alleged that Farber's relationship with Guccione, Jr. led to her promotion and other job opportunities. Ultimately, the jury found that Spin editors had created a "hostile environment" and awarded $90,000 to the plaintiff; the remainder of the charges, including those of sexual favoritism, were rejected.

In 1999, Farber co-founded the non-profit organization Rock The Boat. The organization's mission was to arrange rock music concerts to stimulate independent thinking about subjects which the organization's proponents believed had been censored by the media.

Farber also worked as a ghost writer on the books How I Helped OJ Get Away With Murder by Mike Gilbert, and The Murder Business: How The Media Turns Crime Into Entertainment and Subverts Justice by Mark Fuhrman.