In the tortuous mythology of the AIDS epidemic, one legend never seems to die: Patient Zero, aka Gaétan Dugas, a globe-trotting, sexually insatiable French Canadian flight attendant who supposedly picked up H.I.V. in Haiti or Africa and spread it to dozens, even hundreds, of other men before his death in 1984.
Mr. Dugas was once blamed for sparking the entire American AIDS epidemic…The New York Post even ran a picture of him under the headline “The Man Who Gave Us AIDS.”
But after a new genetic analysis of stored blood samples,…scientists on [Oct. 26] declared him innocent.
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Myths like that of Patient Zero echo in prevention efforts even today, experts said. Many vulnerable groups, including young gay men and African women, fail to use protective drugs or avoid testing because they fear being stigmatized or accused of being carriers.
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Relying on previous genetic research and African colonial records , [Dr. Jacques Pépin, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec] showed that H.I.V. was carried from Kinshasa to Haiti in the 1960s — most likely by…[a] Haitian civil servant….
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: H.I.V. Arrived in the U.S. Long Before ‘Patient Zero’
