HIV Patient Zero Was Misidentified

[Riddick]

Newly published research is rewriting the earliest chapter of the historical account of how the AIDS epidemic began in the United States.

The study, which was published in the journal Nature, found that attention for years focused on a French-Canadian flight attendant, Gaetan Dugas, because of a typographical mistake.

Through a labeling error on Dugas’s case file, Patient O (the letter) became Patient 0 (zero) — and the characterization that he was the source of the US outbreak stuck in the popular press. The “O” was meant to indicate that Dugas was from “outside of California,” where his case came to light when he was interviewed by public health officials studying the spread of the new disease among gay men in San Francisco.

The work, detailed in a study released Wednesday, discounts the long-held notion the flight attendant brought the virus to the United States. Despite the fact the investigators never suggested Dugas had been the source of the outbreak, a mythology evolved, in part through the book and film version of “And the Band Played On,” which was written by journalist Randy Shilts, who contracted HIV and died in 1994. FULL STORY