Gaëtan Dugas

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Gaëtan Dugas (February 20, 1953–March 30, 1984) was a French-Canadian flight attendant, who worked for Air Canada.^[1]

Dugas was a prominent figure in the early development of AIDS research: a study published in the American Journal of Medicine in 1984 traced many of New York City's early HIV infections to Dugas^{[citation needed]}. He was dubbed "Patient Zero" by epidemiologists after the Centers for Disease Control determined that many of Dugas's sexual partners had developed HIV/AIDS. (The conclusions of the AJM study have since been challenged.)

Dugas was featured prominently in Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On, which documented the outbreak of AIDS in the United States. Shilts portrayed Gaetan as having almost sociopathic behaviour, by allegedly intentionally infecting others with the virus. Gaetan was described as being a charming, handsome sexual athlete, who, according to his own estimation, averaged hundreds of sex partners a year. As a flight attendant he was able to travel the globe at little cost to such early HIV epicenters as Los Angeles, New York, Paris and San Francisco. After being warned that his Kaposi's Sarcoma could be caused and spread by a sexually-transmitted virus, Dugas refused to stop having unprotected sex, and allegedly informed certain sex partners that he had the "gay cancer" and perhaps they would get it too.

However, a number of authorities have since voiced their reservations about the implications of the CDC "Patient Zero" study, and some resulting characterisations of Dugas as being "responsible" for single-handedly bringing HIV to places like San Francisco or Los Angeles. While Shilts' book does not go so far as to make such an allegation, the rumour, due to a misunderstanding of the proper interpretation of the early HIV patient cluster study, became difficult to eradicate. Andrew R. Moss performed a thorough debunking of the story in the New York Review of Books^[2].

Dugas died in Quebec City on March 30, 1984 as a result of kidney failure caused by continual AIDS-related infections (Shilts [1987] 1988:439)^[3].