Gaëtan Dugas
publication date: Wednesday, April 2, 2025 (part of April 2025)
category: 
Controversy
clue: There was Zero reason why this frequent flyer should have been posthumously blamed for his role in an epidemic in the 1980s.
explanation: Dugas was a flight attendant who was linked to several early cases of AIDS in the United States around the time of his 1984 death from the disease. An epidemiologist labeled him "Patient O" for "Out-of-California," which was changed to "Patient Zero" in the book And the Band Played On that extensively portrayed Dugas as a central figure in the epidemic. Subsequent research in the 2010s exonerated Dugas and made clear that he could not have been the cause of the early spread of HIV. more…
intended difficulty: medium
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, Samir Mehta, and Richard Slominsky
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