“Patient Zero”: The Absence of a Patient's View of the Early North American AIDS Epidemic (2014)
McKay, Richard A. (Author)
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Volume: 88, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 161-194
This article contextualizes the production and reception of And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts's popular history of the initial recognition of the American AIDS epidemic. Published over twenty-five years ago, the book and its most notorious character, Patient Zero, are in particular need of a critical historical treatment. The article presents a more balanced consideration---a patient's view---of Gaétan Dugas's experience of the early years of AIDS. I oppose the assertion that Dugas, the so-called Patient Zero, ignored incontrovertible information about the condition and was intent on spreading his infection. Instead I argue that scientific ideas in 1982 and 1983 about AIDS and the transmissibility of a causative agent were later portrayed to be more self-evident than they were at the time. The article also traces how Shilts's highly selective---and highly readable---characterization of Dugas rapidly became embedded in discussions about the need to criminalize the reckless transmission of HIV.
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