Editing Gaëtan Dugas (section)

=="Patient Zero" designation==
Dugas is featured prominently in [[Randy Shilts]]' 1987 book ''[[And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic]]'' (1987), which documents the outbreak of the [[HIV/AIDS in the United States|AIDS epidemic in the United States]]. Shilts refers to Dugas as "Patient Zero" and portrays him as having almost sociopathic behaviour by allegedly intentionally infecting, or at least recklessly endangering, others with the virus. Shilts interviewed epidemiologist [[Selma Dritz]] who reported that in 1982 she informed Dugas that he was infecting other people, but he refused to cease having casual sex in spite of this.<ref>{{cite news |title=How One Young, Gay Man Was Wrongfully Blamed for Bringing AIDS to the US |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-one-young-gay-man-was-wrongfully-blamed-for-bringing-aids-to-the-us/ |author=Bethy Squires |publisher=Vice |date=December 1, 2016}}</ref> Dugas is described as being a charming, handsome sexual athlete who, according to his own estimation, averaged hundreds of sex partners per year.<ref name="Macleans"/> He claimed to have had over 2,500 sexual partners across North America since becoming sexually active in 1972.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shilts |first=Randy |author-link=Randy Shilts |title=And The Band Played On |url= https://archive.org/details/andbandplayedon00shil |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Penguin Books|Penguin]] |year=1988 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/andbandplayedon00shil/page/439 439] |isbn=978-0-14-011130-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Gladwell |first=Malcolm |author-link=Malcolm Gladwell |title=The Tipping Point |publisher=[[Little, Brown and Company]] |year=2000 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/tippingpointhowl00glad/page/21 21] |isbn=978-0-316-34662-7 |title-link=The Tipping Point }}</ref> In [[David France (writer)|David France]]'s 2016 book ''[[How to Survive a Plague]]'', Shilts' editor expressed his regret for having "made a conscious decision to vilify Dugas in the book and publicity campaign in order to spur sales."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I31ODAAAQBAJ&q=gaëtan%20dugas&pg=PT79 |title=How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS |first=David |last=France |author-link= David France (writer) |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Pan Macmillan]] |date=December 1, 2016 |isbn=978-1-5098-3941-4 |page=PT79 |access-date=December 28, 2016 }}</ref>