Among the world’s most pernicious gay-related myths, up there with homosexuality being a choice, sexual positions being the same as
gender roles, and gay men being pedophiles, is the notion of a sole individual somehow personally responsible for the introduction of the HIV virus to North America. In Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic (University of Chicago Press, $35. www.press.uchicago.edu), London-based scholar Richard A. 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.
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 Gaetan Dugas, the French-Canadian flight attendant who was vilified and villainized as Patient Zero in the popular press. McKay also provides a disturbing psychological portrait of Randy Shilts, the ambitious gay journalist and author of And The Band Played On, the book that made Dugas and the Patient Zero myth (even though later debunked) an indelible part of our cultural history: Shilts “was an exceedingly driven reporter, one who had worked very hard to overcome insecurities relating to his looks, his talents, and his addictions…desperate to write an important book, not only to secure the fame he had long craved, but also to help protect the gay community…in this state of mind, he…decided that [Dugas] was a sociopath and to blame for much of the epidemic.” While Shilts’ book did prove to be an important one, it also created the need for this powerful corrective.
Originally published in PASSPORT magazine
