HIV-Positive Woman's Denial and Ignorance Kills Child
I am filled with rage at a story in today's Los Angeles Times. Christine Maggiore, a wealthy woman who tested HIV-positive in 1992, convinced herself that HIV did not cause AIDS, and that in fact she wasn't sick at all. Despite the fact that she has no formal medical training, she wrote a book on the topic. She gave birth to and breast fed her two children, ignoring a huge body of medical research about parent-to-child HIV transmission. She refused to get her children tested for the disease, going to great lengths and questionable measures to avoid doctors who would require such tests. She has been supported in this task by a bizarre nationwide network of similarly-minded people.
Her 3-year-old daughter died of AIDS-related pnuemonia this year. Maggiore refuses to admit fault or change her views.
These days, given advances in HIV care, it's highly unusual for any young child to die of AIDS. What makes Eliza Jane's death even more striking is that her mother is a high-profile, charismatic leader in a movement that challenges the basic medical understanding and treatment of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Even now, Maggiore, a 49-year-old former clothing executive from Van Nuys, stands by the views she has espoused on "The Ricki Lake Show" and ABC's "20/20," and in Newsweek and Mothering magazines. She and her husband, Robin Scovill, said they have concerns about the coroner's findings and are sending the report to an outside reviewer.
"I have been brought to my emotional knees, but not in regard to the science of this topic," said Maggiore, author of an iconoclastic book about AIDS that has sold 50,000 copies. "I am a devastated, broken, grieving mother, but I am not second-guessing or questioning my understanding of the issue."
Maggiore's daughter, Eliza Jane, was shielded from HIV and AIDS testing by Dr. Paul Fleiss (who once got himself in some trouble by hiding the assets from his daughter Heidi Fleiss's high-class brothel), who was also in denial of the child's condition.
"I don't understand it," Fleiss said of Eliza Jane's death, "because I've never seen her sick or with anything resembling what she supposedly died of
. I don't believe I could have done anything to change this outcome."
Fleiss, who said he could be "convinced either way" on whether HIV causes AIDS, has known the family since before Eliza Jane was born. In 2000, the county Department of Children and Family Services investigated Maggiore and Scovill after a tipster complained that Charlie was in danger because he hadn't been tested for HIV and was breast-fed.
The department found no evidence of neglect, based partly on reassurances from Fleiss, according to an official report reviewed by The Times.
The Los Angeles police department is investigating everyone involved for potential child neglect.
Neglect?!? How about criminal fucking negliance, reckless endangerment, and voluntary manslaughter? Every doctor who examined this child should be sued for malpractice, and this woman and her husband and everyone along the line who helped hide or ignore this child's condition should be put in fucking prison. I hope the Maggiores' son, Charlie, gets the medical attention he most likely desperately needs.
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Comments
punx47
Rocky Point, NY
August 2002
DEC 16, 2005 02:46 PM
Shal
Los Angeles, CA
October 2002
DEC 16, 2005 03:23 PM
punx47
Rocky Point, NY
August 2002
DEC 16, 2005 03:37 PM
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