If we didn't have enough evidence already that Bryan Fischer has gone off the deep end, it came in spades on yesterday's edition of Focal Point. Fischer apparently believes that HIV doesn't cause AIDS.
Fischer's guest yesterday was leading AIDS denier Peter Duesberg, who argues that AIDS is caused by recreational sex among gay men. Fischer not only agrees with this aberration, but Duesberg's other outrageous claim that HIV was merely cooked up to get more grants. See for yourself (h/t to PFAW's Right Wing Watch):
Fischer's bosses at the American Family Association are openly endorsing this crazy--both segments of Fischer's interview with Duesberg are prominently featured on the front page of the AFA Website, and are also available on AFA's YouTube channel (part 1, part 2).
By openly endorsing the AIDS denial movement, Fischer and the AFA have spat in the face of thousands of AIDS victims who aren't gay. They are also giving succor to potentially dangerous quackery. According to his own book, Duesberg believes that HIV is harmless, and that AIDS is actually caused by recreational drug use. He even suggests that AZT can cause AIDS. Fischer and the AFA's apparent endorsement of this are all the more dangerous given that most of their followers live in a "Christian cocoon."
Duesberg's arguments have been torn to pieces time and again by the mainstream scientific community. For instance, he argues that AIDS was caused by an epidemic of recreational drug use--a claim that has been completely debunked. His claim that sexual promiscuity causes AIDS was shot down as early as 1993 when a Nature article declared this had "no basis in fact."
Moreover, Duesberg's advice directly contributed to a public-health crisis in South Africa. He served on an AIDS advisory panel to the South African government back in 2009, and on his advice, thousands of people were denied access to anti-viral drugs. Two studies have concluded that this lunacy resulted in 330,000 AIDS deaths that didn't have to happen, as well as thousands more preventable infections. Incredibly, Duesberg actually submitted a paper that argued since South Africa's population has increased, HIV is harmless. The paper was rejected by at least one mainstream journal out of concerns that it contained scientific misconduct before being published by a non-peer reviewed journal, Medical Hypotheses. However, that paper was retracted after an external review found that the article's assertions "could potentially be damaging to global public health."
Quite frankly, it is inconceivable Fischer didn't know all this in advance. I've come to expect the religious right to overlook the facts when trying to mobilize its followers. Remember, David Barton claimed an FBI agent forced to resign for banging a key witness was actually forced out for speaking out against the Muslim Brotherhood. And I've come to expect assertions from these guys that could potentially put people in danger. But this takes the cake.