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The Ethics of Hunting Down ‘Patient Zero’
New York Times ^ | OCT. 29, 2016 | DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Posted on 10/30/2016 6:43:16 PM PDT by nickcarraway

The alleged “Patient Zero” of the American AIDS epidemic — a French Canadian flight attendant named Gaétan Dugas, who died of AIDS in 1984 — was exonerated last week.

Genetic sequencing of blood samples stored since the 1970s showed that the strain infecting him had circulated among gay men in New York for several years before he arrived here in 1974. Therefore, although he had hundreds of sexual partners in several cities, he did not introduce the virus to North America; he was a victim before he was a vector.

The revelation, some AIDS experts said, proved that the epidemic’s early days had been overshadowed by a witch hunt. Terrified Americans wanted someone to blame.

Federal health officials said homosexuals, Haitians, hemophiliacs and heroin users were all victims — thus effectively calling them all carriers. Many individuals felt the sting of suspicion, including Ryan White, a 13-year-old hemophiliac bullied and barred from middle school after he contracted H.I.V. from a blood-clotting factor.

Mr. Dugas’s name emerged when Randy Shilts, a journalist who himself later died of AIDS, published his best-selling history of the epidemic, “And the Band Played On.” Through interviews, he found the real name of the mysterious “Patient O,” for “outside California,” in a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linking 40 men with AIDS on two coasts. Although Mr. Shilts never claimed that Mr. Dugas was the nation’s first case, alarmist journalism during his book publicity tour created the image of a libertine who, as one headline screamed, “Gave Us AIDS.”

The debunking of the Dugas myth raises a moral question: Is it right to hunt down the first case in any outbreak, to find every Patient Zero?

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; History; Science
KEYWORDS: aids
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To: Morgana
the article is bullsh!t
41 posted on 10/30/2016 8:24:22 PM PDT by Chode (You Owe Them Nothing - Not Respect, Not Loyalty, Not Obedience, NOTHING! ich bin ein Deplorable...)
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To: Gay State Conservative
Everyone else couldn't have cared less.

I think a lot of people were afraid of becoming the next Ryan White.

Homosexual activists are still intent upon allowing gay men to donate blood. So, yeah; people cared and still care.

42 posted on 10/30/2016 8:35:06 PM PDT by ChicagahAl (Sanders - Make America Venezuela. Clinton - Make America My Piggy Bank. Trump - Make America Great.)
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To: nickcarraway

Ok..... so he wasn’t patient zero. He was just a homo flight attendant who had sex with hundreds of men in the 70s, in dozens of towns.
That’s way better. /s


43 posted on 10/30/2016 8:40:07 PM PDT by DesertRhino (November 8, America's Brexit!!!)
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To: nickcarraway

What difference at this point does it make?


44 posted on 10/30/2016 8:51:40 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: Perchant

“off the hook for developing something that makes Hitler’s holocaust look puny.”

Please get serious. Around 650,000 have died of it in about the last 30 years. By contrast, more died in auto accidents, heart disease is the runaway winner. AIDs killed roughly a similar number to prostate cancer. that’s across

And Hitler? in about 6 years killed at least 15 million. Not in warfare, but in simple cold blooded murder. AIDs does not make the holocaust look puny. And Hitler is embarrassed by Stalin and Mao.


45 posted on 10/30/2016 8:56:48 PM PDT by DesertRhino (November 8, America's Brexit!!!)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Exactly. Blood sales crosses state and national lines.


46 posted on 10/30/2016 8:58:28 PM PDT by DesertRhino (November 8, America's Brexit!!!)
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To: nickcarraway
He was a libertine. That image is completely correct and his behavior spread the epidemic.
47 posted on 10/30/2016 9:07:05 PM PDT by wintertime (Stop treating government teachers like they are reincarnated Mother Teresas!)
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To: Gay State Conservative
I cared. I worked in a medical ICU. Accidental needle sticks do happen. They have happened to me. And....Medical workers did get AIDS and died from it due to accidentally sticking themselves with a contaminated needle.
48 posted on 10/30/2016 9:11:34 PM PDT by wintertime (Stop treating government teachers like they are reincarnated Mother Teresas!)
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To: Gay State Conservative
One more thing:

HIV infected people are immune compromised. Add to that the lifestyle of homosexuals and IV drug users which puts them into intimate contact with sometimes hundreds of partners who are also living in a very risky manner. Tuberculosis and many other highly infectious diseases are easily passed among this group and then among the unsuspecting public is also exposed.

HIV are walking petri dishes of infectious diseases. No, I would not want a active homosexual to babysit my children.

49 posted on 10/30/2016 9:17:22 PM PDT by wintertime (Stop treating government teachers like they are reincarnated Mother Teresas!)
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To: Gay State Conservative

.One of the nurses I worked with *did* contract both HIV *and* Hep C from a needle stick during a code.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yep! Health workers did and still do get infected from accidental needle sticks.


50 posted on 10/30/2016 9:27:35 PM PDT by wintertime (Stop treating government teachers like they are reincarnated Mother Teresas!)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar; Askel5

The FR bloodhounds, led by the heroic Askel5, were all over it.


51 posted on 10/30/2016 9:32:26 PM PDT by Romulus
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar; Askel5

The FR bloodhounds, led by the heroic Askel5, were all over it.


52 posted on 10/30/2016 9:32:26 PM PDT by Romulus
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To: Nevadan
To imply that it was unethical to attempt to identify the first patient and how it spread from him is irresponsible.

Judging by identity politics and accompanying P.C., this elementary lesson in "epidemiology 101," learned over centuries and millions of lives, is illegal by Executive Order.

"Irresponsible" doesn't begin to describe the ongoing disaster.

And the enablers are the coalition of the stupid, the ignorant, the elected criminals seeking to enrich themselves, deviants and criminal thugs conflating "freedom" with licence, and supported by the "leaders."

Lice, tuberculosis, all types of killer diseases we thought had been wiped out forever... all being reintroduced to our country. And no one is immune.

These insane groups actually believe that "compassion" is the noblest goal of "humanity."
No matter how many normal lives are needlessly lost.

53 posted on 10/30/2016 10:00:29 PM PDT by publius911 (IMPEACH HIM NOW evil, stupid, insane ignorant or just clueless, doesn't matter!)
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To: Gay State Conservative; 1L
Re: “The methods of transmission had been clearly established by the early-mid 80’s.”

Sorry, that is not correct.

In 1986, the CDC “doubled” the number of heterosexual HIV cases in the USA by secretly adding all HIV positive Haitian immigrants to the heterosexual total.

The CDC decided, with no public comment, that no Haitian immigrants were homosexual or IV drug users.

The MSM enthusiastically cultivated heterosexual panic for the next two years.

Heterosexual panic did not begin to subside until late 1987, after Michael Fumento published his ground breaking essay on heterosexual AIDS risk in Commentary magazine.

One more note on “political correctness.”

I read the full Research Letter in Nature that “exonerates” Patient Zero.

It traces the genetic pathway of HIV in America from Africa, to Haiti, to the homosexual community in New York City.

It is entirely possible that the real Patient Zero was a homosexual Black American.

54 posted on 10/30/2016 11:00:14 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: DesertRhino

35 million world-wide have died from the failure to quarantine the disease. It certainly would have been “extreme” to quarantine San Francisco but 35 million dead is also extreme so it’s worth a discussion on the topic of extremism.

It’s also extreme ( but quantified true ) to make a comparison with Hitler’s holocaust, I’ll grant you that, but such a comparison will bring the downplayers out to claim falsely that only a few thousand died from the failure to quarantine aids so we have interesting dichotomies of extremism going on.


55 posted on 10/31/2016 3:40:58 AM PDT by Perchant
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To: nickcarraway

“....although he had hundreds of sexual partners in several cities....”
YECH! and to think we have a gay guy in the White House and a lesbian running for president. Just YECH!


56 posted on 10/31/2016 9:05:47 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Actor/comedian Danny Kaye died in 1987. He contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion. Maybe the blood came from the Clinton stock.


57 posted on 10/31/2016 9:13:28 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: Alter Kaker

Didn’t know that! Toda Raba. Never saw that accent on Gaetan before.


58 posted on 10/31/2016 9:42:59 AM PDT by golux
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Comment #59 Removed by Moderator

To: wintertime

I would not want any kind of sodomite to babysit my children. active or inactive does not matter to me. the lifestyle is a kind of mental illness with a very negative spiritual component. totally inappropriate for child care.


60 posted on 10/31/2016 4:43:08 PM PDT by SecAmndmt (Arm yourselves!)
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