Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives

AIDS denialist organisation

Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives (formerly HEAL, Health Education AIDS Liaison) is a 501(c) non profit organization of AIDS denialists. The organization's stated mission is to "present information that raises questions about the accuracy of HIV tests, the safety and effectiveness of AIDS drug treatments, and the validity of most common assumptions about HIV and AIDS." The organization's founder, Christine Maggiore (who died from AIDS related complications in 2008) estimated in 2005 that the organization had assisted about 50 HIV positive mothers in developing legal strategies to avoid having their children tested or treated for HIV.

Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives was founded in 1995 by Christine Maggiore, who tested HIV positive in 1992. Although Maggiore was initially active in the AIDS community, providing AIDS and HIV education through AIDS Project Los Angeles, she later came to question her diagnosis. Ultimately, she came to believe that HIV was not the cause of AIDS, and formed Alive & Well to expound her views. Maggiore became a controversial figure following the death of her 3 year old daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill. Eliza Jane was never tested for HIV and died on May 16, 2005, of Pneumocystis pneumonia in the setting of advanced AIDS. Maggiore did not believe that Eliza Jane had AIDS and instead attributed her death to an allergic reaction to amoxicillin. Mohammed Al Bayati, a board member of Alive & Well and a veterinary toxicologist, issued his own report arguing that a drug reaction, not AIDS, was responsible for Eliza Jane's death. Eliza Jane's death was the subject of reports by ABC Primetime Live and the Los Angeles Times;

Although there is extensive scientific evidence to the contrary, Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives promotes the viewpoint that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. The organization also espouses the viewpoints that:

Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives encourages people to "get involved" by passing out literature, donating copies of Christine Maggiore's book What If Everything You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong?, contacting radio and television shows, writing to newspapers and magazines, and starting their own discussion groups.