Year in review

Two important things stand out to me from my experience of 2023 and those are:

1. There was a concerted attempt to ban my book, which failed.

2. I brought attention in the media to the Truvada disaster, which had until then experienced a near total media blackout. Later, the New York Times picked up the story, albeit in the business section. The timing is interesting—why now?

Let’s get into it.

Here’s a roundup of what’s happened in the world of AIDS in 2023, admittedly from my perspective.

The Truvada lawsuits continued apace, and that story is destined to blow up in the new year. By the end of the year, after a five year media blackout on this story, the New York Times of all publications finally published a story about these lawsuits, which I’ve been covering for a year.

Thank you to Tony Lyons of SkyHorse Publishing for taking a chance on my book, and thank you to Robert F. Kennedy Jr for bringing my work to a wider audience via citing me in The Real Anthony Fauci. I really appreciate both of you and what you’ve done for me.

However, it was certainly a surprise to all of us when Jason Rosenberg published a hit piece on my book in January. That was only the beginning, however, as a full fledged petition to ban my book followed, and then there was a full on protest outside of the Simon&Schuster offices the day before my book was published.

It has long considered to be a truism that no publicity is bad publicity; however, I’m not sure that’s always the case. The protest received no media coverage whatsoever and therefore had no effect whatsoever on publicity for my book. But a more sinister thing happened that I believe ultimately undermined my goals in getting this message to a very wide audience, and that is that immediately upon publication, a number of unverified one-star reviews appeared on Amazon. When I say immediately, I mean within hours of publication, so there is no possible way the reviewers could have read the book in time to review it so quickly.

Regardless, the book has still done quite well, and I am grateful to every one of you that has purchased or reviewed a copy. I am also very grateful for the growth of this substack, so thank you to everyone that subscribes. It really means a lot.

I’d like to move on to the biggest stories of 2023, and those are the insane ramping up of the push for PrEP, which I have covered extensively enough that I don’t want to dwell on this today, and the end of the media blackout on the Truvada lawsuits that happened in July when the New York Times finally covered the ongoing 26,000 plaintiff class action lawsuits that have been ongoing since 2018. Predictably, the spin began immediately and the AIDS activists tried to cover up the fact that they had been actively trying to have advertisements for the Truvada lawsuits censored on social media for years prior to that—in effect, attempting to prevent patients from reaching attorneys that might help them obtain compensation for their medical expenses and complications.

I can’t stress this enough. For years, the AIDS activists engaged in overt manipulation to get advertisements from law firms who were representing victims of Truvada removed from social media. And then they turn around and pretend that they hadn’t tried to censor the ads; incredibly, claiming that they had been advocating for transparency despite all evidence to the contrary. One can only speculate why they might have done this, but why on earth would they not want patients to know of the potential dangers of these drugs that are so excessively marketed to them?

I don’t know what 2024 has in store for the Truvada lawsuits, but I imagine that this story is only going to get bigger before it goes away.

What do you think of the state of AIDS and “infectious disease” medicine in 2023? Are we moving forward or backward? And what would you like to see happen in 2024?

To support my work on Substack, please purchase my book for yourself or for a friend, and leave a review on Amazon. You can learn about efforts to ban my book here. You can also buy my new book Almost Cancelled.

If you’re a new reader and would like some background as to my views on HIV AIDS, including the “existence” question, please refer to this post and the links contained therein.