Talk:Gaëtan Dugas

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This page is not a forum for general discussion about Gaëtan Dugas. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Gaëtan Dugas at the Reference desk.

Patient O (oh) as in "Outside [US]", namely in Canada, misread as "zero" and thus misunderstood as patient zero

Per NPR abt 24 hours ago, the facts are

The widespread ID'n of GD as the predominant vector into N Amer reflected nothing more than misconstruings of his code name,
He got labeled as the vector before anyone had anything close to evidence adequate to identify the vector
Tho the article doesn't make clear who knew and when they knew it, there were cases in the US (probably thousands of cases) years before he was infected.

While i'm not prepared to edit definitively, i am editing urgently.
--Jerzy•t 10:19, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not prepared to edit definitively, but editing urgently? Not sure why. Mercster (talk) 10:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let's summarize most notable information in very first sentence

That to me it's that he was believe for years to be patient zero, and now is "convincingly clear" per BBC. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-37767179
Let's largely go with this. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 16:20, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The primary case for AIDS?

"... who once was widely regarded as "Patient Zero" or the primary case for AIDS in the United States."

When I tried to correct this bad English to "the first case of AIDS" I was reverted. Why? What I wrote was not less accurate and is better English. Grassynoel (talk) 00:35, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Year of birth: 1952 or 1953 (different across Wikipedia language versions)

Dugas' year (and exact date) of birth is currently (Dec 2020) listed differently in various Wikipedia language versions:

DE: 20 February 1953 [1] (also FR, IT, ES, NL, ZH, PL)
EN: 19 February 1952 [2]
RU: 20 February 1952 [3]

Most recent sources since 2006 have probably copied the dates from Wikipedia (his birthday is listed in the Englisch Wikipedia since 2006), so sources from before 2006 are probably to be preferred.

The Chicago Tribune writes in his newspaper from 1 november 1987 [4]: QUEBEC CITY, March, 1984-Dugas had survived his fourth bout with pneumocystis and appeared to be on his way to recovery. [...] The model was on the plane east when Dugas died in Quebec City. It was March 30, a month past Dugas` 31st birthday, and nearly four years since he had first gone to see the doctor in Toronto about the purple spot near his ear..

If he lived to see his 31. birthday in 1984, he must have been born in 1953. Does anyone know more reliable sources? And what about the exact day (Februrary 19 or 20)?

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas
[3] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D1%8E%D0%B3%D0%B0,_%D0%93%D0%B0%D1%8D%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD
[4] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-11-01-8703230166-story.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.194.212.113 (talk) 12:33, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Did not spread HIV to America?

"Later, as the misinterpretation persisted, scientists performed a genetic analysis of stored blood samples, bolstered by historical detective work, to specifically confirm that Dugas did not bring HIV to the United States and was not Patient Zero."

He may not have been "patient zero", but do we know definitively that "Dugas did not bring HIV to the United States"? He may have been one early vector. This article is contradictory in several areas, and as the Talk page shows, an emotional issue. Mercster (talk) 10:34, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The claim is well sourced

By genetically sequencing samples from people infected early on, scientists say they have figured out when and where the virus that took hold here first arrived. In the process, they have exonerated the man accused of triggering the epidemic in North America.

Lightbloom (talk) 22:00, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If he really had over 2,000 partners then it hardly matters whether he brought HIV to the U.S. or not. While he didn't "trigger" the epidemic in the U.S. he sure as hell fueled it. Empathy for this guy? What for?

Ascertainment bias?

The Patient Zero theory was faulted for ascertainment bias, being based largely on data provided by Dugas. The theory was reportedly rejected based on “a genetic study that looked at blood samples taken from gay and bisexual men in 1978 and 1979”. Is this not simply a different though less obvious form of ascertainment bias? 67.193.139.175 (talk) 18:06, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]