Posted on 10/30/2016 6:43:16 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The alleged “Patient Zero” of the American AIDS epidemic — a French Canadian flight attendant named Gaétan Dugas, who died of AIDS in 1984 — was exonerated last week.
Genetic sequencing of blood samples stored since the 1970s showed that the strain infecting him had circulated among gay men in New York for several years before he arrived here in 1974. Therefore, although he had hundreds of sexual partners in several cities, he did not introduce the virus to North America; he was a victim before he was a vector.
The revelation, some AIDS experts said, proved that the epidemic’s early days had been overshadowed by a witch hunt. Terrified Americans wanted someone to blame.
Federal health officials said homosexuals, Haitians, hemophiliacs and heroin users were all victims — thus effectively calling them all carriers. Many individuals felt the sting of suspicion, including Ryan White, a 13-year-old hemophiliac bullied and barred from middle school after he contracted H.I.V. from a blood-clotting factor.
Mr. Dugas’s name emerged when Randy Shilts, a journalist who himself later died of AIDS, published his best-selling history of the epidemic, “And the Band Played On.” Through interviews, he found the real name of the mysterious “Patient O,” for “outside California,” in a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linking 40 men with AIDS on two coasts. Although Mr. Shilts never claimed that Mr. Dugas was the nation’s first case, alarmist journalism during his book publicity tour created the image of a libertine who, as one headline screamed, “Gave Us AIDS.”
The debunking of the Dugas myth raises a moral question: Is it right to hunt down the first case in any outbreak, to find every Patient Zero?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No, he was not “exonerated”.
The guy was an active, willing after some point, little spring of disease and death.
Big deal if he wasn’t the very first first in America The evil bastard added contempt for the lives of others on top of being a colossal pervert.
“Everyone else couldn’t have cared less. “
Wrong.
My Godson received a transfusion in 1983 after an automobile accident and died in 1984-—San Francisco.
He was 22-—and we were all wrecks.
.
He was OK as in the letter of which was for outside California.
Assigned by the researcher tracing how aids got to call...3
I’m sorry for your loss, Mears.
He was OK as in the letter of which was for outside California.
Assigned by the researcher tracing how aids got to call...3
Everyone knows that homosexuals just want to be married like everyone else...
OK >>> O
Of >>> O
Exactly. He was a flight attendant doing God knows what all over the country and the world.
Dispicible sophistry this victim before a vector crap.
Thanks-—his parents and sibs rallied around him-—the nursing staff would not shave him because of all of the confusion about the disease..
.
Blood from Bill Clinton’s AIDs infected state prisoners?
Concerning public health, searching for the source and the first patient to be exposed to a disease is simply the responsible thing to do. It is important in determining how the disease spread and how to stop the spread. To imply that it was unethical to attempt to identify the first patient and how it spread from him is irresponsible.
Sorry,you're right.I forgot about Factor VIII recipients.
Just FYI...during the 1980's I was working in the ER of one of the world's most famous hospitals,which was located in a major city.Our hospital was the main hospital utilized for adult admissions for the area's largest health insurers..an insurer that had a huge number of patients engaged in an alternative lifestyle.As a result I saw more AIDS patients pass through our doors than I care to remember.For that matter I saw more AIDS patients *die* in our ER than I care to remember.
IOW,I know something about the subject.And yes,I *did* forget Factor VIII.
Again,sorry.
Should be “Factor VIII and transfusions”
It’s not an uncommon name in Quebec. Pretty rare elsewhere in the francophone world. For example the current health minister in Quebec is Gaétan Barrette. It’s a variant of the Italian Gaetano.
Sorry,that wasn’t meant for you.
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