https://player.vimeo.com/video/52682901
Channel 4 News Report 1998 Challenges identification of HIV and highlights anomalies between different HIV test kits
Below is some of the correspondence relating to the 18 month build-up to a proposed one hour documentary for Dispatches Channel 4 that was to be transmitted on World AIDS Day 1998.
We were given development money to carry out a series of tests together with the Robens Institute at Surrey University which showed up some serious anomalies in the HIV test results from three different commercial test kits.
David Lloyd, editor of Dispatches, had previously commissioned four Dispatches programmes from us (Meditel Productions) about challenges from scientists to the infectious hypothesis for AIDS and questioning HIV as the cause of AIDS. He gave us £17,000 of development funding and, together with Huw Christie, then editor of Continuum Magazine, we put 29 blood samples (blinded) through three different commercial test kits, with some astonishing results. Admittedly this was a small study and David Lloyd felt it did represent a real “breakthrough” from the dissident camp. The attached correspondence reflects Lloyd’s gradual reluctance to take on a major challenge of the orthodoxy that would focus on the unreliability of the HIV test.
He decided not to go ahead with the World AIDS Day special and suggested instead that we make a short report for Channel 4 News on that day.
As it happened we had been filming at the Geneva World AIDS Conference where the Perth Group of scientists, including Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, Dr Valendar Turner, Dr John Papadimitriou and David Causer had participated in a conference by satellite and had stated that HIV had never been isolated or purified and that the HIV test was based on flawed science.
We were commissioned by Chanel 4 News to make a 10 minute report. The day before transmission, the editor Jim Gray said he had had a “tectonic shift” and refused to broadcast our report. Continuum Magazine and Meditel staff demonstrated outside Channel 4 News offices in Greys’ Inn Road on World AIDS Day.
The correspondence below is proof of the sad story about the film that never went out…
But the good news is that we were able to documentary our research for the documentary in my book “Positively False – Exposing the myths around HIV and AIDS” and also in a documentary made thirteen years later called “Positively False – Birth of a heresy”. Although it has not had a network broadcast, it was nominated for best documentary at Lucerne and Marbella International film festivals.
Banning of Channel 4 News Report – Press Releases (View PDF)
Proposals + background for HIV testing for CH4 TV 1996-98
Meditel Productions to Dr Graham Hughes 21-5-96
Meditel Prods fax to Graham Hughes 21-5-96
Prof Gordon Stewart to Dr Eleni Eleopolus 25-05-96
Meditel Prods FAX to Prof A Hassig – 28-05-96
Meditel Prods to Dr Eleni Eleopulos
Meditel fax to Eleni Eleopulos
Meditel fax to Graham Hughes 4-6-96
Continuum to Graham Hughes 6-6-96
DR Graham Hughes to Meditel 31-06-96
David Lloyd CH4 to Meditel Prods 01-10-96
Meditel Prods to David Lloyd CH4 04-10-96
Meditel Prods to D Lloyd CH4 25-10-96
Meditel Prods to Dr Peter Jones 16-05-97
Peter Jones NRHS to Meditel Prods – 21-05-97
Positively False Update 06-06-97
Meditel Prods to Dr Frank Hill 13-06-97
Publication of HIV tests for CH4 TV – 1998
Dr FGH Hill to Meditel Prods 03-07-97
David Lloyd CH4 to Meditel Prods 26-09-97
Meditel Prods FAX to Dr Val Turner 15-07-98
Meditel Productions Fax to A Hassig 19-07-98
Prof Gordon Stewart to Richard Tate ITN News 14-12-98
Meditel Prods FAX to Peter Barron CH4 News
1996-1998 Proposals and Background information about HIV testing for Channel 4 TV