06-22-2021, 06:16 PM
(Edited 06-22-2021, 06:18 PM by CellarDweller.)
Spanning the 1970s until today, the story of Gaétan Dugas - aka 'Patient Zero' - serves as the perfect microcosm of the evolution of AIDS in America and the country's response to it.Â
Gaetan Dugas, who grew up in Quebec City, was a Quebec flight attendant, who was openly and proudly gay, and he liked to wear makeup. In the early 1980s after he contracted what was initially called "gay cancer" in the media, he provided his blood samples and the names of seventy two (72) of his former sex partners. Dugas's assistance with a subsequent medical study and his providing his sexual history played a key role in contributing to a study that helped prove HIV/AIDS was sexually transmitted.
Gaetan Dugas was initially demonized because of his promiscuity, being openly gay, and he was wrongfully identified as patient zero, therefore being wrongfully identified for quite some time as the initial person responsible for introducing the AIDS virus into North America.Â
Exploring timely themes about fear, the demonising of the unknown and the danger of false narratives, this documentary weaves social history and scientific investigation into a poignant story of an individual who became intrinsically and tragically linked with AIDS.