| Gaëtan Dugas | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 20, 1953 |
| Died | March 30, 1984 (aged 31) Quebec City, Quebec |
| Occupation | Flight attendant |
| Known for | Alleged patient zero for AIDS |
Gaëtan Dugas (French: [ɡaetɑ̃ dyˈɡa]; February 20, 1953 – March 30, 1984) was a Canadian who worked for Air Canada as a flight attendant.[1] Dugas became notorious as the alleged patient zero for AIDS, though he is now more accurately regarded as one of many highly sexually active men who spread HIV widely before the disease was identified.
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A study published in the American Journal of Medicine in 1984 traced many of New York City's early HIV infections to an unnamed infected homosexual male flight attendant. Epidemiologists hypothesized that Dugas had carried the virus out of Africa and introduced it into the Western gay community.[2]
Dugas was featured prominently in Randy Shilts's book And the Band Played On, which documented the outbreak of AIDS in the United States. Shilts portrayed Gaëtan Dugas as having almost sociopathic behavior, by allegedly intentionally infecting, or at least recklessly endangering, others with the virus. Dugas was described as being a charming, handsome sexual athlete, who, according to his own estimation, averaged hundreds of sex partners a year. He claimed to have had over 2,500 sexual partners across North America since becoming sexually active in 1972.[3] In addition, Dugas was legally married in Los Angeles on June 27, 1977 in an illegal attempt to receive Unites States citizenship.
According to Snopes.com:
Dugas appeared to move between denial that whatever he had could be transmitted sexually ("Of course I'm going to have sex. Nobody's proven to me that you can spread cancer"), depraved indifference to his partners' wellbeing ("It's their duty to protect themselves. They know what's going on out there. They've heard about this disease"), and a desire to take others with him ("I've got gay cancer. I'm going to die and so are you"). Possibly his rationale came down to something much simpler — he loved sex, if not his partners. Living under a death sentence, perhaps he was determined to enjoy his last moments on earth, and consequences be damned.[4]
Dugas died in Quebec City on March 30, 1984 as a result of kidney failure caused by continual AIDS-related infections.[5]
The "Patient Zero" term arose in March 1984, after a CDC study. The CDC began tracking the sexual liaisons and practices of homosexual men in California and New York and some other states. As Dugas was found to be the center of a network of sexual partners, he was dubbed "patient 0".[2]
Genetic analysis of HIV provides some support for the Patient Zero theory. Dugas is now believed to be part of a cluster of homosexual men who traveled frequently, were extremely sexually active, and died of AIDS at a very early stage in the epidemic.[6]
However, a number of authorities have since voiced reservations about the implications of the CDC Patient Zero study, and characterisations of Dugas as being responsible for bringing HIV to such places as Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the patient zero study, the average length of time between sexual contact and the onset of symptoms was 10.5 months.[2] At the time of the study it was not known that the average length of time between initial infection and AIDS is ten years. While Shilts's book does not make such an allegation, the rumour that Dugas was the principal disseminator of the virus became widespread. In 1988, Andrew R. Moss published an opposing view in the New York Review of Books.[7]
A November 2007 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences dismisses the Patient Zero hypothesis and claims that AIDS transited from Africa to Haiti in 1966 and from Haiti to the United States in 1969.[8][9]
Robert Rayford has since been confirmed as the first documented victim of HIV/AIDS in North America,[10] having died at age 16 in May 1969. He reported having experienced symptoms since 1966.
Ardoin Antonio, a Jamaican-American shipping clerk who was raised in Haiti, died in New York on June 28, 1959 of Pneumocystis Pneumonia, an AIDS-defining illness. His lungs have still not been tested. It is highly suspected that he had AIDS.