Voir le sida autrement

Press Release
March 7, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, March 7, 2007--Rethinking AIDS, a global organization of more than 2,300 scientists, medical doctors, journalists, health advocates, and business professionals, asked the BBC today to reject a call for censorship of the 2004 documentary film Guinea Pig Kids. The film, coproduced with NDR, German public television, exposed drug experiments on poor, mostly Latino and African-American New York City children presumed to be HIV positive, conducted at Incarnation Children's Center (ICC) in Manhattan.

In a March 7, 2007, letter to the acting chair of the BBC Trust, RA president Dr. Etienne de Harven wrote, "Thanks to the BBC exposé and other investigative reports in the U.S. and Europe, the disturbing practices at the ICC came to the attention of human rights organizations and local government agencies, prompting hearings, investigations and media coverage that continue to this day."

On January 10, 2007, several AIDS researchers sent a complaint letter to the BBC asking it to remove "editorial support," which includes a transcript of the film, from the BBC Web site and that an apology for "false and misleading" portrayal of the children as "guinea pigs" be posted in its place. The documentary investigators found, however, information from ICC’s own former Web site, as well as the Web site of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), indicating that ICC used children to test not only unusually high numbers of highly toxic drugs (mixtures of up to eight drugs) but also at doses that were significantly higher than normal. (See also, the BBC’s follow-up story.)

RA has urged the BBC to "refuse censorship of this vitally important film, continuing the courageous stance that led to the pursuit of this story." It requested that coverage of Guinea Pig Kids remain on the BBC Web site and that no apology be issued for what is an accurate report.