Patient zero and the making of the AIDS epidemic /
In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaâetan 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 i...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Chicago :
The University of Chicago Press,
2017.
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaâetan 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. |
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| Item Description: | Electronic resource. Description based on opening page (viewed Jan 04, 2019). |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780226064000 022606400X |