Gaetan Dugas
Country
Canada
Birth - Death
1953 - 1984
Occupation
Activist
Description
Gaetan Dugas has been identified by several scientific sources as the most likely candidate to have introduced the AIDS epidemic to North America. By tracing sexual contacts, the Centers for Disease Control in the United States found him to be the common link to nine of the first 19 cases in Los Angeles, 22 cases in New York City, and nine in eight more cities. As a result, the public characterized him as Patient Zero to the AIDS crisis.
Dugas was an airline steward with Air Canada who was known for his open sexual behaviour with men wherever he travelled. It is known that he contacted the AIDS virus in June 1980, a few years before the disease had been labelled as epidemic. It is believed that Dugas carried the virus out of Africa. Though warned about having sex with other men, Dugas did not heed the warning and boasted about continuing his sexual relations with as many as 250 partners a year.
At the time, scientists were desperately searching for an explanation about the source of the disease in order to control its spread, calm an increasingly nervous public, and look for a virus to prevent it. The 1984 study that traced numerous cases back to Gaetan Dugas was a startling result from this effort. Researchers could draw links and diagram them by location.
This information coincided with the publishing of the book And the Band Played On (1987) by author Randy Shilts, a chronicle of the early days of AIDS in the United States. Shilts publicly identified Gaetan Dugas for the first time. The media grasped on to this revelation and created a firestorm of epic proportions. It has been argued that the 1987 New York Post newspaper headline ‘The Man Who Gave Us Aids’ – was one of the most influential of all time (Oct 6, 1987).
Up to this point, there was still little attention being paid to the AIDS disease outside of New York City and Los Angeles. What this revelation did, fuelled by the media frenzy that followed, was materially raise the public awareness and attention to the disease. This was particularly noticeable in the political arena where the issue of AIDS rose to the top of the agenda on health and wellness issues. The book, its mention of Gaetan Dugas, and the media frenzy combined to create the national AIDS activist movement.
The scenario also created an opportunity to further marginalize and isolate the LGBTQ community. It reinforced the notion that gay men were a promiscuous, irresponsible, and immoral group in the community. Further ammunition was given to those groups opposing the rights and recognition of the gays - they were blamed for spreading the disease, a concept that still exists today.
Further studies have questioned the notion that a single individual could possibly be the source of the AIDS epidemic. In reality, Gaetan Dugas was but one patient in the medical study in which he was identified by the letter ‘O’. This was subsequently changed to zero, and the convenient phrase ‘Patient Zero’ was coined as a popular way to characterize Dugas. This concept is now routinely used to describe index cases in new epidemics, such as the recent Ebola crisis.
Gaetan Dugas, then, is important not so much in terms of his personal life’s contributions, but as a symbol of several confluent social issues. His story, true or not, arguably brought the AIDS crisis to the fore and created the activist movement around it. The story also revealed the powerful effect journalism can have on the influence of societal beliefs and behaviour. The quick adoption by the public reveals how a group can readily accept a logical argument to an unknown, pressing question, without evidence of its veracity. The case of Gaetan Dugas reveals the attraction of a single-villain approach to problem solving. Finally, the story did raise awareness for the need to generate conversation with sexual partners and their sexual practice.
The AIDS crisis has been a primary issue for the LGBTQ community from the late twentieth century to today. While it is a challenging one on many fronts, it is important that we embrace it as part of our history, while at the same time putting it in a rational context so as not to make it the defining issue.
