...infants whose HIV infected mothers listen to AIDS denialists never got the chance to make their own decisions. The Maggiore case received wide publicity. Christine Maggiore is a person who’s proselytized against the use of antiretrovirals to prevent HIV/AIDS. She’s a classic AIDS denialist, and she gave birth to a child who died at age three late last year of an AIDS-related infection. The coroner’s report clearly reports that the child died of AIDS. That was another unnecessary death.
In 1992, Eliza Jane's mother, Christine Maggiore, tested positive for HIV. She subsequently became involved in volunteer work for a number of AIDS charities, including AIDS Project Los Angeles, L.A. Shanti, and Women at Risk. However, following an interaction with prominent AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg in 1994, she began to question whether HIV causes AIDS. Maggiore came to believe that her positive test may have been due to flu shots, pregnancy, or a Common viral infection.
The following day, Eliza Jane became lethargic and vomited several times. While Maggiore was on the phone with Incao, Eliza Jane collapsed and stopped breathing. She was rushed by ambulance to Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, California. Physicians attempted to resuscitate Eliza Jane, but were unsuccessful. According to the hospital report, a "chest x-ray revealed pneumonia," and Eliza Jane was pronounced dead at 5:40 AM on May 16, 2005.
In September 2006, the Medical Board of California filed charges of gross negligence against one of these Physicians, Paul Fleiss, who was Eliza Jane's pediatrician, alleging a failure to test Eliza Jane for HIV (or to document her parents' refusal of testing), a failure to counsel Maggiore to avoid breast-feeding at any time during the three years Maggiore breast-fed her daughter, given the risk of transmitting HIV, and similar violations of standard medical practice in Fleiss' care of a second HIV-positive child.
Maggiore and her husband, Robin Scovill, sued Los Angeles county in 2007 for allegedly violating their daughter's civil rights and privacy by releasing her autopsy report, which indicated that she was HIV-positive. A settlement was reached in 2009.
John Moore, a prominent HIV/AIDS researcher speaking at the 16th International AIDS Conference, described Eliza Jane's death as a concrete Example of the human harm that can result from pseudoscientific beliefs such as AIDS denialism:
