Retroperspective #1 – HIV/AIDS: An epidemic of fake news

New cases were soon reported in North America and Europe. 
Fear then spread of GRID, Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, whose scope was rapidly extending beyond the homosexual community. Over time, the indiscriminate nature of the infection, transmitted by sexual contact and blood, was recognised, and it was renamed AIDS - Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

While the first cases were recorded in the United States, a study carried out a posteriori showed that the virus first infected people in Central Africa. Blood samples preserved by the colonial administration of the Congo indicate that a patient was infected as early as 1959. 
HIV is thought to be a retrovirus derived from infections in chimpanzees, whose hunting and ingestion in the Great Lakes region led to infection through blood transmission between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. With increasing urbanisation and population flows, monkey viruses spread rapidly, evolving into infectious human epidemics until the virus exploded in the 1980s.

Misinformation and the spread of HIV-AIDS: discriminatory bias and scientific research

The history of AIDS, its spread, and the containment of the epidemic cannot be viewed simply as a series of scientific discoveries, given the decisive role played by its cultural dimension. HIV-AIDS also represents the spread of an “epidemic of meanings” (Paula Treichler, 1987).
Indeed, the fact that the first cases observed concerned homosexual men restricted research into the epidemic, which the press reported as the “gay syndrome” or “homosexual cancer”, and which the centres for disease control analysed through the prism of the 4Hs. This nomenclature, chosen to designate at-risk populations - haemophiliacs, homosexuals, heroin addicts, Haitians - referred to marginalised social groups without providing a relevant analysis of the virus's transmission.

Researchers and public opinion concealed the pandemic's ability to spread among women and within heterosexual relationships. However, while men who have sex with men are indeed more exposed to HIV infection, the idea of a “gay cancer” is an artefact that supports a homophobic interpretation of the disease, sexualising and objectifying gay men.
HIV is wrongly linked to male penetration and a fetishisation of anal sex (which is more risky) among homosexual men. HIV-positive women are invisible through this prism of analysis, even though they account for the majority of HIV-positive people in the world according to UNAIDS.

Misinformation and criminalisation of HIV-positive people: from lack of information to discrimination

Misinformation about AIDS and a widespread lack of knowledge about how it is spread and who is exposed to it have contributed to the criminalisation of HIV-positive people. According to Advancing HIV justice, by 2022, 82 countries had HIV-specific criminal laws that allow for the prosecution of HIV-positive people.
In Canada, for example, a law passed in 1998 - which has since been amended - states that HIV-positive people can be prosecuted if they do not disclose their serological status to their sexual partners, even if their viral load is undetectable and non-transmissible. If they don't reveal their serological status, even in the absence of a viral load, intercourse may be considered as sexual assault under Canadian federal law.
Lack of knowledge about the infection and how it is spread, resulting from a lack of knowledge and information campaigns about HIV/AIDS, often leads to HIV-positive people being ostracised and their health being called into question.

FIMI – International Indigenous Women’s Forum and HIV: Building of Soviet propaganda

HIV, which emerged in the last decade of the Cold War, was also an arena for geopolitical confrontation. Between 1983 and 1987, the KGB and the Stasi, the intelligence services of the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic, coordinated support for publications attributing the virus to a laboratory origin in the United States. Scientists such as Jakob Segal have fuelled the theory of a virus created from scratch by the US Department of Defence, in search of a microbiological weapon.
In his publications, Segal mixes verified observations, misinterpretations of reliable data and false information. For example, he establishes a link between prisoners subjected to forced medical experimentation by the US prison authorities in the 1950s and 1970s, and the prevalence of AIDS among homosexuals and drug addicts, who are over-represented in the US prison system, to infer a deliberate government intention in the spread of AIDS.
The research carried out on the pandemic has invalidated these hypotheses, which nonetheless spread to some sections of US public opinion. Spreading rumours of a virus created by the authorities in Europe, Asia and the United States by a foreign power constitutes interference in the information landscape of the target countries. Such interferences has a name, and is called FIMI (Foreign Information, Manipulation and Interference).

Informing about HIV-AIDS

The history of HIV-AIDS has been written by activists, sufferers and survivors. From the earliest years of the epidemic, many patients have drawn on their own experiences to offer expert insights. They went on to set up treatment clubs and advocated for their inclusion in political deliberations on the issue. Thanks to their knowledge of scientific advances, HIV-positive patients became treatment activists, prompting the pharmaceutical industry to speed up the roll-out of medication for the virus.
AIDS provided an opportunity for the scientific community and the media to recognise the need to give a stronger voice to those affected, so that the collective sum of their personal experiences could contribute to collective progress.

Global AIDS inequalities and the "One Health" approach

HIV/AIDS is addressed very unequally by public authorities around the world.
Anne-Marie Moulin, Emeritus Research Director at CNRS, acknowledges, for example, that only 30% of HIV-positive people in Africa receive treatment. Access to the latest drugs is very unequal across the world, preventing effective treatment of the virus.
The rise to power of the US far-right threatens to accentuate these geographical inequalities, with projections by UNAIDS in early 2025 pointing to the risk of a 400% increase in HIV/AIDS-related deaths worldwide by 2029 as a result of the White House freezing development aid funds.
Faced with these inequalities, the United Nations is promoting the One Health initiative, for an integrated, systemic and unified approach to public, animal and environmental health, at local, national, and global levels. The media, which play a key role in campaigns to detect and treat pandemics, play an important role in this global initiative.

In the face of HIV-AIDS, CFI reaffirms the role of free, trained and responsible media in relaying the voices of HIV-positive people, in setting up health campaigns to curb the epidemic, and in sharing best practice to move towards ending it.
Appendices :
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2. Fiche d’information - Dernières statistiques sur l’état de l’épidémie de sida | UNAIDS. (n.d). UNAIDS. 
3.  Vidard, M., & Crosnier, C. (2025). Une histoire mondiale du sida. France Inter. - Aballea, M. (2025). Une histoire mondiale du sida. CNRS Éditions. 
4. Piarroux, R. (2022,). Sida et KGB : la fake news d’une création en laboratoire. France Culture. [podcast].
5. Benkimoun, P. (2014). Aux origines de la pandémie du sida. Le Monde.fr. 
6. Treichler, P. (2013). Le sida, l’homophobie et le discours biomédical : une épidémie de signification [1987]. Genre Sexualité & Société, 9. 
7.Belli, S. (2024). Les femmes et le VIH : un combat contre les inégalités. Sidaction. 
8. Laforgerie, J-F. Pénalisation du VIH  : les militants-es canadiens-nes montent au front. Aides. 
9. Obligation de divulguer son statut sérologique à ses partenaires sexuels ? Le système de justice pénale évolue. | INSPQ. (n.d.). Institut National De Santé Publique Du Québec. 
10. Foire aux questions : VIH et sida | UNAIDS. (n.d). ONUSIDA 
11. Stricot, M. (2021). De l’angoisse à la lutte, une histoire du sida. CNRS. Le Journal. 
12.  Ladouce, F. (2025). 4 millions de décès supplémentaires liés au sida et au VIH : la conséquence redoutée du retrait des financement américains - RTBF Actus. RTBF. 
13. Première manifestation du sida au Congo . (n.d.) Perspective Monde. 
14. Comment se transmet le vih/sida ? - Sidaction. (2024). Sidaction. 
15. «Indétectable = Intransmissible» ou « i=i » | Plate-Forme Prévention Sida. (n.d) Plateforme Prévention Sida.