Rationality is a methodology, not a position, and name-calling goes against it's core principles.

To quote Vlad M:

In many ideologically charged topics that are a matter of culture wars and political battles, a key strategy is to create an association in the public mind between one's favored position and a vague and general feeling of righteousness and moral rectitude -- so that in the future, ideological opponents can be defeated by attacking their moral character, regardless of the quality and accuracy of their arguments and position

I think that applying the term AIDS denialist to someone who irrationally denies the validity of the scientific consensus on HIV/AIDS is entirely appropriate. It is certainly the standard term for the phenomenon.

I don't think that's right. "AIDS denialism" is usually used to mean this:

AIDS denialism is the view held by a loosely connected group of people and organizations who deny that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism

Believing that other people knew (or should have known) how angry they were going to make you is exactly what makes outrage-driven discussions blow up.

Malice and spite exist, but I think they're very rare compared to incompetence.

Also note that doing things even when you know that they will make other people angry is not necessarily malicious or spiteful. In most cases it will be because healthy individuals place limits on how much responsibility they assume for other people's emotions. Doing things because they will cause another person could be spiteful. (Although even then that is not necessarily the case. See, for example, the recent Star Trek movie in which time-travelled Spock tells Kirk to provoke an emotional response in the young Spock, allowing Kirk to save everyone including Spock.)

So I guess what you're trying to say is that he didn't intend for the word "denialist" to conjure up images of the Holocaust in the minds of readers. Of course this is possible, but I think it's pretty unlikely. The modern revival of the word (in the context of climate change) was specifically intended to have that connotation, and this was discussed openly by those who popularized its use in that arena.

Now I suppose it's possible that he just picked the word up from context and started using it, without realizing that it was designed to provoke an emotional response and shut down rational debate... but based on his tone and overall approach, that's not what it seems like to me.