Don’t you
hate it when people place the blame on you for something that you are not even
responsible for? Imagine how Gaetan Dugas must have felt! Gatean Dugas, a
French-Canadian gay man who worked as a flight attendant for Air Canada, was
globally labeled as “Patient Zero” of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and was named as
the Typhoid Mary for the spread of the virus. Recent investigations into the
blood of Gaetan Dugas and other men in the gay culture showed that Dugas was
not “Patient Zero”. The blood serum that was stored from the 1980s was
investigated and the full genomes of the HIV strains found in the serum
indicated that the epidemic begun in the U.S. before Dugas contracted the
virus. Dugas died in 1984 and the blame was placed in his direction and he did
not have anyone to defend his name until recently in this investigation. The
theory behind this mishap was that CDC investigator’s coding system was
misread, where Case O57, which means the 57th case that was found
outside of California, was read as a zero to indicate the patient zero. He was
basically drawn up as a villain in history because of a misreading.
Why was
HIV/AIDS such a big deal during that time? HIV/AIDS was a new disease in the
1980s that was found to first spread in the gay communities. Once it was found
that the disease is sexually transmitted (bodily fluids) and could occur in
homosexual interactions as well, the public began to panic about the risk of
contracting the disease. A bigger shock was discovered, which was that people
could contract HIV through blood transfusions. Even today, HIV/AIDS is a topic
that people worry about because there is not a cure. HIV stands for human
immunodeficiency virus and AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
If HIV is left untreated, it can lead to AIDS. Once you have the virus, your
body cannot get rid of it completely, which means that you have HIV for life. Many
famous people have shared their story about living a life with HIV/AIDS or have
died from complications with the disease, such as Charlie Sheen, Magic Johnson,
and Eazy-E.
How does
HIV work? HIV attacks the immune system, especially the T cells, which help the
immune system fight off infections. Not treating the virus could dramatically
reduce the number of T cells in the body and leave the person more susceptible
to infection or infection-related cancers, which is an indication that the
person has AIDS (the last stage of the HIV infection). Nowadays, there are
treatments and medical care, such as medicine known as antiretroviral therapy
(ART), that can control HIV to and prolong the lives of people who have HIV. From
this article and research done on HIV/AIDS, it can be seen that people need to
be educated about this topic or else they will end up panicked, full of fear,
or in an extreme case such as this, make false assumptions that could wrongly
place the blame of a disease on someone.
Sources: http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2016/10/patient-zero-hiv-aids-1980s-was-globally-defamed-dna-shows
I remember seeing headlines recently about how "Patient Zero" wasn't actually Patient Zero, but I did not look into it further at the time, so I'm glad you decided to write about this so I could get more info. It is very sad that he was blamed for bringing HIV to the US simply because his case number was read wrong. I am glad that it has finally been resolved, and I'm sure any surviving family he may have had is as well.
ReplyDeleteThe possibility of getting HIV/AIDS through a transfusion is exactly why thorough screening of donors are needed, it would be horrible for something like that to happen. While I'm glad that he was removed from blame it really sucks that it happened after he had already passed.
ReplyDeleteIs it still unknown as to who patient zero actually was or how the disease first spread? I've heard a lot of theories, but I don't know which is true.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad to me that Dugas was labeled patient zero through a mistake. That he was blamed just from someone misreading the label. And I completely agree with you that this is a subject that everyone should know about just to avoid unnecessary panics.
ReplyDeleteI am so sad for this person! I do think that HIV/AIDS is something that everyone should have some knowledge on. It is such a serious disease that can really affect a person and their partners.
ReplyDeleteI was a little kid, but it was clear that there was so much homophobia tied up in response to the new disease. There was a lot of scape-goating, paranoia, and unkindness. A little bit like last year's E. bola outbreak.
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