McKay, Richard A. (Author)
University of Chicago Press
Physical Details: 432 pp.
Language: English
The search for a "Patient Zero"--Popularly understood to be an epidemic's first infected case--has been key to media coverage of major infectious disease outbreaks for more than three decades. Yet the term itself did not exist before the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. How did this idea so swiftly exert a strong grip on the popular consciousness? In Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic, Richard A. McKay demonstrates how this seemingly new concept drew upon centuries-old ideas--and fears--about contagion and social disorder. McKay presents a carefully documented account of the life of Ga�tan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the epidemic developed and who gained widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as Patient Zero of the North American outbreak. McKay shows how public health investigators inadvertently created the term amid their early research into the emerging health crisis; how an ambitious journalist dramatically amplified the idea in his determination to reframe national debates about AIDS; and how many individuals grappled with the notion of Patient Zero--adopting, challenging and redirecting its powerful meanings--as they tried to make sense of and respond to the first fifteen years of an unfolding epidemic in Canada and the United States. With important insights for our interconnected age, Patient Zero untangles the complex process by which individuals and groups create meaning and allocate blame when faced with new disease threats.--Page 4 of cover.
...MoreReview Maeleigh Tidd (2020) Review of "Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic". Pharmacy in History (pp. 73-75).
Review Stephen Inrig (2019) Review of "Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic". American Historical Review (pp. 1111-1112).
Review Gerald M. Oppenheimer (2019) Review of "Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 294-295).
Review Jim Downs (2019) Review of "Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 482-484).
Review Neeraja Sankaran (2018) Review of "Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 536-538).
Review Victoria A Harden (2019) Review of "Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic". Social History of Medicine (pp. 436-437).
Review Steven Noll (2019) Review of "Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic". Journal of American History (pp. 1100-1100).
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