Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christine Maggiore 1957 - 2008

I knew Christine Maggiore. I hadn't spoken to her in a few years, and I didn't agree with her views on HIV/AIDS. But I felt her grief when she lost her daughter Eliza Jane three years ago, and I grieve her passing today.

She's been criticized and called so many things, the worst of those a murderer. I don't think of her that way. It's hard to reconcile her seemingly radical lifestyle with how I knew Christine. She was thoughtful and compassionate, and sometimes brutally honest. She found out she was HIV positive shortly before my wedding fifteen years ago, but at the time she told a mutual friend not to let me know because she didn't want the news to put a pall on my wedding plans. Then again, she also once told me that my letterhead sucked after I had used it to write her a letter of recommendation. I remember I cussed and hung up on her. I probably forgave her after she called back and cracked a joke.

Christine had a kick-ass sense of humor and was sarcastic as hell, which I loved. We worked together for awhile, and I remember one day we had to run out to the 99¢ Store to buy a bunch of crap for a photo shoot. As we were checking out we were mesmerized by the mind-numbing job of the cashier - repeatedly punching in 99¢ over and over and over again. After watching her for awhile I turned to Christine and said, "I think I finally found a job I might be good at." Without missing a beat Christine shot back, "Naw, you'd probably get fired after you looked at everything upside down and rung it all up at 66¢."

I've read a lot of things on the internet today about Christine's life, and so much of it has been cruel. I'm hoping that people can look beyond the controversy for just a moment and see a kind friend, a devoted wife and a mother who loved her children. I'm sad that we lost touch, that I had to find a picture of her on the internet because I didn't have any of my own. I'm going to remember how she made me laugh, and I'll miss that.

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15 comments:

  1. So sorry for the loss of your friend. I've read about Christine, but had no idea you knew her. What a tragedy for those she has left behind.

    -annie

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  2. The death of Christine Maggiore is tragic just as her life was tragic.
    She was mislead by Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick and other AIDS Denialists. Ultimately she promoted their pseudoscience at her own peril. Many others were harmed by her relentless promoting of false information that confused people about HIV testing and treatment.
    We should respect the decision of an informed person to refuse treatment for any serious medical condition. But the problem with AIDS denialism is that people are making testing and treatment decisions based on misinformation and disinformation spread by AIDS pseudoscientists and conspiracy theorists. The sad story of AIDS denialism that enmeshed Christine Maggiore is told in a new book Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy (all Royalties donated to buy HIV medications in Africa) for more information visit http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/

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  3. I'm inclined to believe that a person's politics doesn't generally reflect their goodness or badness. I'm sorry for what has been said about your friend, and I'm sorry for her passing.

    I hope you're okay today x

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  4. We have a family member that has been HIV-positive for well over 20 years. We remain befuddled as to why they haven't studied him more to find out why, which he is willing to do.
    I'm sorry about the loss of your friend.

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  5. Hello,

    I too knew Christine. I spent several holidays with her and her family. I have HIV. I took no medications. In March of 2006 I weighed 140 pounds, had 18 t-cells and barely survived. I made the decision to take meds. Christine had a position and she stuck to it - however, she never judged anyone else their choice and we remained friends. My prayers go out to her family. Regardless of peoples personal emotions over what she believed or how she lived her life. She was a mother who was much loved by her family and her death is a tragedy.

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  6. Hello,

    I too knew Christine. I spent several holidays with her and her family. I have HIV. I took no medications. In March of 2006 I weighed 140 pounds, had 18 t-cells and barely survived. I made the decision to take meds. Christine had a position and she stuck to it - however, she never judged anyone else their choice and we remained friends. My prayers go out to her family. Regardless of peoples personal emotions over what she believed or how she lived her life. She was a mother who was much loved by her family and her death is a tragedy.

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  7. Chris was my sister's best friend in Jr. & High School. A beloved one to our family ! I'm so glad I got in contact with her 3 years ago being able to share with her my photo art Xmas cards. Will be missing sharing with her now. Bill Blanch'e

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  8. Christine was both right and wrong in her views. The situation with HIV/AIDS is so complex. Mostly I did not agree with her and she knew that. As an R&D employee of a major clinical diagnostics company my situation was a delicate one. I made appropriate referrals for her; she was always grateful and never inconsiderate in her requests.

    Our friendship was pure happenstance -- I met Robin, her husband, when he sat next to me on an Amtrak train at Santa Barbara two years ago. Soon after I visited the family in Van Nuys and met Christine. She never once tried to take inappropriate advantage of my situation during our two-year friendship. During a life threatening illness of my own this year she provided comfort and reassurance with frequent calls just to say hello.

    Robin, Charley and Christine spent five days with us last August at our new home on a mountain top near Clear Lake in Northern California, where Charley got in a little bass fishing. Christine was a wonderful mom. If you want a recent pictures of Christine, Robin and Charlie in a family situation please contact me. I will e-mail you separately. I'm quite sure they wouln't mind my sharing the photos.

    Thank you for your thoughtful and perspective comments.

    Bill

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  9. April- approximately 5% of HIV+ people are called "long-term non-progressors" given a genetic deletion (or absence) of coreceptors on their t-cells which prevents HIV from efficiently entering the cell. In other words, for some very fortunate people with HIV with the right genetic makeup, the virus is not fatal. This is well known within the medical community.

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  10. I am so sorry for the loss of your friend and her daughter. We don't always have to agree with one another to recognize and honor a beautiful spirit like hers.

    (((hugs)))

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  11. I'm so very sorry to hear about your friend, Marsha. This doesn't seem like the appropriate forum for political debate about her views. Just an appropriate time to take a moment to mourn the loss of someone's mother.

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  12. Writing from the UK, the controversy is unknown so my picture of loss is not clouded. I am sorry for it.

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  13. I'm sorry that you feel a loss over Christine's death.

    But mostly, I'm glad she's gone.

    Despite her kindness on a personal level, she used her infamy and created a platform by where she talked South African President Mbeki out of providing life saving antiviral therapy to HIV positives in his country; an act that cost countless lives, needless agonizing deaths of children and adults.

    Likewise, she deluded so many desperate HIV positives right here in the U.S. and never asked herself why the extremely rare life-threatening opportunistic infections in the AIDS category just weren't happening to HIV negative individuals - WHATEVER their lifestyles!

    She ignored everything inconvenient to her position that HIV wasn't a factor in health or lack thereof.

    She did kill her daughter by willful neglect.

    We have a difficult time reconciling someone who is outwardly kind with someone who is also incredibly arrogant and unyielding in their view that perhaps they are wrong and that their words and actions may be costing lives.

    I'm only sorry that Christine Maggiore's death from AIDS didn't come months after her diagnosis of HIV, where many many innocent lives could have been saved from her uneducated, lethal rhetoric.

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  14. To those who have used the comment section of this post to celebrate Christine's passing, to promote their own agendas, or even more shamefully, to promote their own books (for shame, Seth Kalichman,) might I just say as a friend of Christine's that there is a special section in the hottest part of Hell reserved for those who dance on the graves of innocent mothers and children.

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  15. Well I believe that when you have to die, you will die, doesn't matter the how or the when, or the life style yo have.

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