Patient Zero: Gaetan Dugas Jayne and Heidi

Health and the 80’s Health care crisis of the 70’s Health care costs skyrocket Due to high costs of treatment, new tech, and hospitals changing needs 1980’s Corporation involvement Healthcare related businesses start, corporations start getting involved 1990’s Double Crisis Healthcare costs rise at double the speed of inflation in the U.S. Healthcare reform fails to pass, again, in the U.S. Congress

HIV/AIDS HIV is a virus that attacks cells of your body’s immune system If left untreated, HIV develops into AIDS Auto Immune Deficiency Disorder When the body’s immune system is overtaken by the HIV virus and can no longer defend itself against even weak illnesses Viewed as the “gay cancer” in the 80s Named due to the outbreak first appearing in gay men

Gay Rights and Freedoms in the 80’s Gay culture started getting more attention with the appearance of HIV/AIDs More attention didn’t mean good attention Court of Appeal ruled that there was no “fundamental right” to be gay Catholic church continued attack on gays 1982, US Army declared homosexuality to be incompatible with service Protests continued against gays and gay rights With so many people protesting comes violence The gay community faced lots of shaming and violence that they became uncomfortable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcLjfDatWMk The video gives insight to what the gay community had to face in the 80s, stereotyping with “Leather outfits”

Gay Rights and Freedom in the 80s At the same time, the attention was gaining positive feedback also 1982- Wisconsin became the first state to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation 1984-The city of Berkeley, California, became the first city to offer its employees domestic- partnership benefits. Second annual Lesbian Gay Pride March in Burlington

The Outbreak: How it all started November 1st, 1980 young gay man named Nick Went to the hospital after a seizure and losing consciousness Diagnosed with toxoplasmosis, a normally mild illness CDC Starts Research into this new disease 15 deaths and 52 cases in New York alone Interviews with homosexual men in New York and their recent sexual encounters lead back to one person: Gaetan Dugas July 3rd, 1981 New York times prints the first story of rare pneumonia and skin cancer in gay men The first visibility of the disease https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LKJ5ZzzL0w 1982 report on AIDS outbreak

Gaetan Dugas: His Life Born 1953, died in 1984 Flight attendant Traveled around the world Part of the gay community Canadian citizen Assumed to have 2500 sexual partners across the US

Patient Zero CDC assumed Gaetan was the first person to bring AIDs to the United States October 1980, Dugas went on his first trip to New York which caused all of the early cases of infections to be linked to him Lead to him being known to spread AIDS from coast to coast Hypothesis: Gaetan carried the virus out of Africa and introduced it to the western gay community Researcher Randy Shilts said Dugas had 2500 sexual partners within a 10 year span Randy Shilts wrote “And the Band Played On” CDC tried to control Dugas when it came to his health care http://3030.aidsvancouver.org/1983/ 9:36-11:06 Scientists at the university of arizona were able to see the diseases structure changes and Gaetans structure was not the first structure they found

Patient Zero Later on, studies showed that the spread of AIDs in the United states had actually started in New York in the 70’s Proving that Gaetan had not started the outbreak in the United States 2007- discovered that AIDs was brought from Haiti to the United States in 1969 Diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancer that was frequently found in AIDs patients Diagnosed in 1980 and passed away in 1984 at 31 years old

Impact/Thesis Overall, Patient Zero had an amazing impact on the culture of the 80’s and 90’s by changing and bringing more attention to medical care and LGBT rights, and ultimately ‘starting a fire’ in those areas to bring change.

Sources III, William A. Henry. "The Appalling Saga of Patient Zero." Time. Time Inc., 24 June 2001. Web. 20 May 2016. "Patient Zero Speaks in Never Before Seen Footage." HIVPlusMag.com. N.p., 10 July 2013. Web. 20 May 2016. McKay, Richard A. "“Patient Zero”: : The Absence of a Patient’s View of the Early North American AIDS Epidemic." Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Johns Hopkins University Press, n.d. Web. 20 May 2016. "Health Care Crisis." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 20 May 2016. Walker, B. "Health Care in the 1980s." Journal of the National Medical Association. National Medical Association, 25 Aug. 1985. Web. 20 May 2016.