I see it was my quote from 2009 that you referred to. I will admit that AIDs is not an issue I have any interest or involvement with. Should we separate Neville's private life from his cult adherence? Perhaps.
I remember that prior to my writing that we had been leaked emails that proved Neville was involved in the jossling against this website, which at the time was the only all inclusive discussion forum for BKs, ex-BK, PBKs and the friends and family of emails, and that the line was pretty snobbish and non-conciliatory. From memory, he referred to it as a "poison pen" attack. He has never made any effort to contact us directly and he has continue promote the Brahma Kumaris.
Is AIDs an issue that he is personally interested ... did all the royalties from the book go to an AIDs charity or into his pocket? AIDs is, as he noted in his book, good for business after all. At the time he wrote it, wasn't he living in the Oxford Global Retreat mansion house? I would say he remains one of the Kirpalani Klan's leading frontman and advisor.
It has been nearly 20 years since he wrote that stuff, what has happened since then? I see he makes it into various AIDs resources such as:
ReviewingAIDs.com,
Immunity.org.uk,
AIDS Denialism, likened himself to
the President of South Africa 10 years ago, gets likened to
a Holocaust Denier by author Richard Wilson, finds
supporters and
promotes the latest movie on it. He continues to
write on the subject.
Of course, the medical industry is not beyond question. It does kill a lot more people than the Brahma Kumaris at present and sucks up infinitely more money ($200 bn to AIDs in the USA alone) but it does also provide some genuine services.
If I was to re-write the post today, I would probably make it more along the lines of Neville Hodgkinson sharing a nose for making money with the Sindi Kumaris ... a sort of "cash from chaos" comment. Any good journalist knows, "controversy sells".
Hodgkinson is one of a group of four journalists who are active in the dissident movement, his fellow “truthers” being Celia Farber, Liam Scheff and Joan Shenton ... [who] exist on the margins of the denialist movement. They get the odd article published, and are copiously cited on denialists websites with frequent references made to their previous jobs. The Sunday Times had to get rid of Hodgkinson after a litany of complaints about the paper’s reporting made by scientific and medical community.
Celibate BK Hodgkinson recent interest has been in women who use a vaginal gel during sex ... pass me the analysts couch, Sigmund.
One of the funny press quotes has Hodgkinson worshipping as an End of the World cult, awaiting the return of a Golden Aged "flat earth" and "worshipping a naked, hairy man with snakes around his neck". I can see how they got that bit right ... mistaking the Brahma Kumaris Shiva with the Hindu Shiva. Now, that is the Brahma Kumaris' fault for stealing every other religion's names and ideas. Yes folks, Hodgkinson is waiting for the End of the World (they call it Destruction) and the return of a nuclear powered Golden Age for 900,000 BKWSU followers. And, yes, folks the god of the Brahma Kumaris is called Shiva ... but not that one. Their one is a point of light which exclusively possesses their spirit mediums at the Indian HQ and speaks through them.
I think Hodgkinson was a little bit dishonest to skillfully play dumb about all that criticism. It is all very close to the truth.
One example of this “pushing back the goalpost” technique was the former Sunday Times journalist and prominent AIDS denier Neville Hodgkinson’s claim that HIV tests are invalid because HIV has never been isolated. When scientists provided evidence that HIV has been isolated, the demand changed; Hodgkinson argued that the isolated virus was “impure”.
Denialists now demand that the virus be isolated in “pure form”, that is uncontaminated by proteins. The demand for a pure virus devoid of cellular proteins is impossible to meet as it defies the biological nature of viruses. Such shifting of the grounds of debate allows denialists to claim that they are the ones following the evidence, and it is the AIDS establishment – an alliance of careerist researchers and greedy drugs companies – who are propagating pseudoscience.
All denialism is entrenched in conspiracy thinking.