Patient zero and the making of the AIDS epidemic

Product Description The search for a “patient zero”—popularly understood to be the first person infected in an epidemic—has been key to media coverage of major infectious disease outbreaks for more than three decades. Yet the term itself did not exist before the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. How did this idea so swiftly come to exert such a strong grip on the scientific, media, and popular consciousness? In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay interprets a wealth of archival sources and interviews to demonstrate how this seemingly new concept drew upon centuries-old ideas—and fears—about contagion and social disorder. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaétan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the HIV/AIDS epidemic developed—and who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American outbreak. McKay shows how investigators from the US Centers for Disease Control inadvertently created the term amid their early research into the emerging health crisis; how an ambitious journalist dramatically amplified the idea in his determination to reframe national debates about AIDS; and how many individuals grappled with the notion of patient zero—adopting, challenging and redirecting its powerful meanings—as they tried to make sense of and respond to the first fifteen years of an unfolding epidemic. With important insights for our interconnected age, Patient Zero untangles the complex process by which individuals and groups create meaning and allocate blame when faced with new disease threats. What McKay gives us here is myth-smashing revisionist history at its best. Review “The truth takes a long time coming. Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic is a counterpart to David France's award-winning How To Survive A Plague (2016), which managed for the social, epidemiological side of HIV/AIDS what Richard McKay now delivers for the personal, biomedical story. He is to be applauded for writing a first book of such urgency, acuity and intelligence.” (Richard Canning Times Literary Supplement) Outstanding Academic Title, 2018 ( Choice) “McKay’s arguments provide valuable insight into what was not said or done during this fragile period. In this way, his book serves as a reminder that there can be many facets of the same truth. . . It provides a unique account of how the concept of “patient zero” came into being, influenced a generation, and became a part of our shared lexicon.” (Jessica D. Eisner, M.D. Science) “An authoritative, corrective resource on the early history of the AIDS epidemic. . .McKay successfully corrects the record regarding the so-called “patient zero”. . .McKay also humanizes Dugas by presenting the perspectives of his friends, colleagues, former lover, healthcare providers, and others. . . .Highly recommended.” (E.R. Patterson Choice) “Surprisingly readable for a book of such cool, acute analysis, its most eye-opening sections include an empathetic look at the life and personal perspectives of Gaétan Dugas, the French-Canadian flight attendant who was vilified and villainized as Patient Zero in the popular press. . .McKay not only dismantles this atomic bomb of fake news, but explores the way it distorted and distracted from rational approaches to the spread of the virus.” (Jim Gladstone Passport) “How do myths come into being? Why do some myths fade away whereas others become part of history? What roles do myths play in our understandings of the past and our attempts at making the present comprehensible? These questions lie at the heart of Richard A. McKay´s wonderful book Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic. . .McKay brilliantly discloses how the questions of responsibility, moral and how to have sex in an epidemic were negotiated in the early years of the AIDS epidemic. . .One of the book’s biggest achievements is that we are c