Селия Фарбер: Журналист и спорные взгляды на СПИД

American print journalist and author

Celia Ingrid Farber (born c. 1965) is an American print journalist and author who has covered a range of topics for magazines including Spin, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Harper's, Interview, Salon, Gear, New York Press, Media Post, The New York Post and Sunday Herald, and is best known for her controversial beliefs about HIV and AIDS, and a 1998 report on O. J. Simpson's post trial life. Farber is the daughter of radio talk pioneer Barry Farber and a graduate of New York University. Farber has written extensively about HIV/AIDS and AIDS denialists such as Peter Duesberg. Farber claims that she never expresses her own views about whether HIV causes AIDS and instead merely reports that some people disagree with the mainstream scientific viewpoint. which was focused on the subject of AIDS denialism. In another interview, she said she recognized that publishing an interview with Duesberg would be viewed as an endorsement of his denialist views, but believed as a journalist it was her responsibility to report on what she considered an important event in the "landscape" of AIDS. She also stated she felt that as a journalist, she was not qualified to determine what causes AIDS. In a 1989 column for Spin, Farber interviewed researchers and doctors who felt AZT, the first approved antiretroviral medication for the treatment of HIV, had been pushed precipitously through the United States Food and Drug Administration approval process owing to political pressures. She criticized this process because she felt it led to ignoring other possible treatments, and believed she had to "give voice" to the small minority of scientists at that time who felt AZT was dangerous. Her column was criticized by the scientist running trials on AZT, as "sensationalistic drivel of half truths and noncritical journalism that sells tabloids" and could lead to people avoiding life saving treatment with AZT. Farber rejected criticism that this column was essentially scaring people into avoiding AZT, saying that was not her intent. A Los Angeles Times column criticized the tone of her column as "fear mongering" and "inexcusable," due to her giving Duesberg the last words in her column. Duesberg's words were called "hyperbolic blather", because Duesberg invoked Heinrich Himmler and compared people taking AZT to "people running into the gas chambers".

In June 2006, Farber wrote an article for the Los Angeles CityBeat in defense of Christine Maggiore, an HIV positive AIDS denialist, whose three year old daughter had died from AIDS the year before. Maggiore's daughter, Eliza Jane, was found to be HIV positive only after she died of AIDS related complications in 2005. Maggiore herself died of AIDS related complications in 2008, at the age of 52.

A collection of Farber's AIDS writings, Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS, was published in 2006. Interviewed by Discover Magazine in connection with her book's publication, she stated that she felt many of the older mainstream ideas about HIV were proven wrong and defended the decision to devote her reporting to the AIDS denialist viewpoint as important for journalistic reasons.

Farber describes herself as "a vocal and persistent critic of political correctness and the McCarthyism that reigned in sexual harassment law in the 1990s." During her time as a writer at Spin, Farber was romantically involved with the magazine's publisher and editor, Bob Guccione Jr. In 1994, a Spin employee filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Guccione Jr. and the magazine, alleging sexual discrimination and favoritism. Farber was a key witness in the ensuing trial, as the prosecution alleged that Farber's relationship with Guccione Jr. led to her promotion and other job opportunities. Ultimately, the jury found that Spin editors had created a "hostile environment" and awarded $90,000 to the plaintiff; the remainder of the charges, including those of sexual favoritism, were rejected. and The Murder Business: How The Media Turns Crime Into Entertainment and Subverts Justice by Mark Fuhrman.

She is the daughter of Barry Farber, a noted radio talk show host in New York, and Ulla Farber. She has a sister Bibi who became a singer and songwriter. In 1993, their mother, Ulla Farber, was working as a nurse at Askersund Hospital in Askersund, Sweden.