of data taken from 40 AIDS patients and their partners. 1 This study concluded that AIDS was
likely transmitted by bodily fluids in a similar fashion to how Hepatitis spreads and that the
40 interviewees’ infections could be traced back to a ‘patient 0’ who introduced the
infection to the studied group. 2 The study was an attempt at contact tracing in order to
determine a possible source of infection for what is now called AIDS. 3 The study produced a
graph charting the various sexual contacts of the interviewees, with an unnamed ‘patient 0’
indicating the first carrier. The term ‘patient 0’ stuck out to Shilts during his research an d the
concept would become a focus of the book when it was eventually focused. Through a series
of interviews with doctors and AIDS patients, Shilts eventually determined the identity of his
‘patient zero’, Gaetan Dugas.
Dugas as portrayed in And the Band Played On assumes the role of a villain, an
intentional spreader of disease. His character is introduced by examining and then
concealing a Kaposi's sarcoma lesion out of vanity before a night out. 4 Later in the same
chapter, Dugas is described as: posse ssing a ‘voracious sexual appetite’; a frequent user of
drugs such as ‘poppers’; vainly proclaiming ‘I’m the prettiest’ at parties; and only removing
cancerous growths for the sake of looks. 5
Further in a chapter titled ‘Patient Zero’, it is revealed that Dugas has a sexual history
with multiple AIDs victims. After this, he is told by Bill Darrow that AIDS is likely sexually
1 David M. Auerbach, James Curran, William W. Da rrow, Harold Jaffe, ‘Cluster of Cases of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: Patients Linked by Sexual Contact’ , The American Journal of Medicine , 76, (1984) pp. 487- 492, (p. 490) 2 Steven Epstein, ‘The Nature of a New Threat’, Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) pp. 45-46 3 Priscilla Wald, ‘The Columbus of AIDS’, Contagious Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008) p. 222 4 Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic (London: Souvenir Press, 2011) p. 38 5 Shilts, pp. 58-61
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