Patient Zero and the Making of the AI..., Richard A. McKay
Patient Zero and the Making of the AI..., Richard A. McKay
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Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic

Author: Richard A. McKay

Narrator: Paul Woodson

Unabridged: 12 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/15/2017


Synopsis

In Patient Zero, Richard A. 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.

About Richard A. McKay

Richard A. McKay is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Fishface on March 23, 2019

This big, thick trade paperback proved to be quite a short read because so much of every page -- sometimes more than 3/4-- was citations and footnotes. A great deal of it was frankly confusing blathering about epidemiological research methodology that wasn't irrelevant, but could have been a lot sho......more

Goodreads review by Peacegal on February 04, 2019

This was an interesting book examining the early days of the AIDS crisis in North America, as well as criticizing the notion of a "Patient Zero"--that a single person was responsible for bringing the disease to the US. A decent part of the book was dedicated to examining and refuting parts of the bo......more

Goodreads review by Leslie on July 26, 2022

A highly academic book. If your tolerance for academic-style explanations of methodology and careful delineation of how this work fits into current scholarly debates and exactly which theorists supply the foundation for this argument and how those theorists will be used is low, skim the intro and fi......more

Goodreads review by Fran on July 11, 2024

Vital historical corrective about AIDS misinformation......more

Goodreads review by Pete on December 06, 2023

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. The factual information about the AIDS crisis in the 1980's is fantastic, humanizing Gaëtan Dugas was great. The historical facts about how the term patient zero came into the world's lexicon great. My issue is more when the author starts discussing Ra......more