Fez Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 So this is kinda crazy. A new study on the early history of HIV/AIDS, which was mostly focused on sequencing blood samples from the early 1970s, also found that Gaeten Dugas was never labelled as 'Patient 0' by any medical personnel or researchers. He had been labelled as 'Patient O' with the O meaning 'Outside California' and people got confused at some point and then 'And the band played on' and things spiraled from there. The study found no evidence that he was the primary initial patient in the US. The study did find that as early as 1978, 6.6% of blood samples drawn from gay men in New York and 3.7% from gay men in San Francisco which had been drawn for a study on Hep C also tested positive for HIV antibodies. They estimate that the virus actually first transmitted to the US from the Caribbean in 1971. http://www.nature.com/articles/nature19827.epdf?referrer_access_token=AOy9oLdaPAUuaI3f2c_DANRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Mz5UkminhxQD8O3RqOtslw0uWnC8Yne3mUv32VmwjGPxg_4kzib16MQLWQiLLVCnQIL-9gqIQSH_pZJCHJMJPQJ5ny_-Z7WbQ8e4bWqjfndqwci7TSMLItLivExbH8EzdemSoEVuKcTot2IcdFEn7G&tracking_referrer=www.statnews.com https://www.statnews.com/2016/10/26/history-hiv-aids-new-york/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Return of Rhaenys Kitten Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 Quote Posted 2 hours ago · Report post So this is kinda crazy. A new study on the early history of HIV/AIDS, which was mostly focused on sequencing blood samples from the early 1970s, also found that Gaeten Dugas was never labelled as 'Patient 0' by any medical personnel or researchers. He had been labelled as 'Patient O' with the O meaning 'Outside California' and people got confused at some point and then 'And the band played on' and things spiraled from there. The study found no evidence that he was the primary initial patient in the US. The "O for outside of California" has been known for a while. For example, here's something from 2013: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/05/06/aids_the_truth_about_patient_zero.html I'm pretty sure I've seen references to it from even further back and probably have a bookmark for it somewhere. The overall Patient 0 hypothesis was debunked years ago, I'm not sure why the paper even bothers mentioning it. It is interesting that they got Dugas' specific HIV genome. I thought that most of the early San Francisco/California samples and patient records had been destroyed. Maybe they've got other early samples and we'll be able to back trace the (probable) jump from Haiti to New York. Quote The study did find that as early as 1978, 6.6% of blood samples drawn from gay men in New York and 3.7% from gay men in San Francisco which had been drawn for a study on Hep C also tested positive for HIV antibodies. Hepatitis B, not C. Quote They estimate that the virus actually first transmitted to the US from the Caribbean in 1971. This leaves out the earliest known US AIDS victim, Robert Rayford, who died in 1969. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez Posted October 26, 2016 Author Share Posted October 26, 2016 My bad on the Hep, I think the article said C though. But yeah, the study says B. As for Rayford, maybe he was an isolated earlier case that wasn't connected to the main outbreaks. The study says there were a few different strains going around in New York City, but they were all pretty closely connected, and it seems like they're pretty confident they all trace back to Haiti. While in San Francisco, there was basically only a single strain, which means there might very well have been just one person that brought it from New York City to there. I didn't realize the Patient 0/O thing was already known, and I didn't think most journalists did either. I've seen a few other articles since this one earlier today, and all of them are treating this like new information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zelticgar Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 So basically Dugas became the focus of media and researchers because he was more capable of remembering who his sexual partners were. This resulted in researchers being able to track those people down more effectively than from other early patients. And the rest is history. In some ways he should probably be viewed as an early hero for helping researchers come to some early conclusions on how the disease was transmitted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice Queen Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 There are unsolved cases from the late 1800's that doctors were totally stumped by that today sound suspiciously like HIV. Unfortunately, they didn't save the tissue or blood samples so there's no way to know for sure. What IS known is that HIV probably first arose around Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the early 1920's, although the species barrier was broken years before that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Return of Rhaenys Kitten Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 On 10/27/2016 at 8:46 AM, zelticgar said: So basically Dugas became the focus of media and researchers because he was more capable of remembering who his sexual partners were. This resulted in researchers being able to track those people down more effectively than from other early patients. And the rest is history. In some ways he should probably be viewed as an early hero for helping researchers come to some early conclusions on how the disease was transmitted. You've got it backwards. Dugas didn't remember his partners, his partners remembered him more often due to his unique characteristics. He wasn't a hero either. He knew he had AIDS, yet continued to have a lot of sexual encounters. Selma Dritz has said in an interview that she told him to stop and he ignored her. Dugas was filmed in Toronto at an AIDS conference publicly stating that he wasn't going to stop having sex because(at the time) no one knew what the root cause was. On 10/27/2016 at 0:57 PM, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said: There are unsolved cases from the late 1800's that doctors were totally stumped by that today sound suspiciously like HIV. Unfortunately, they didn't save the tissue or blood samples so there's no way to know for sure. What IS known is that HIV probably first arose around Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the early 1920's, although the species barrier was broken years before that. Anyone who's interested in the topic needs to read Jacques Pepin's "The Origins of AIDS". He has gathered all the historical material from Africa to give the best picture of how HIV emerged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zelticgar Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 On 10/31/2016 at 3:10 PM, Return of the Cookies said: You've got it backwards. Dugas didn't remember his partners, his partners remembered him more often due to his unique characteristics. He wasn't a hero either. He knew he had AIDS, yet continued to have a lot of sexual encounters. Selma Dritz has said in an interview that she told him to stop and he ignored her. Dugas was filmed in Toronto at an AIDS conference publicly stating that he wasn't going to stop having sex because(at the time) no one knew what the root cause was. Anyone who's interested in the topic needs to read Jacques Pepin's "The Origins of AIDS". He has gathered all the historical material from Africa to give the best picture of how HIV emerged. The research paper stated he remembers up to 10% of his partners but the Dritz interview you mentioned clearly contradicts thats. Very interesting. I'll check out the book you mentioned. I have always found the outbreak and the story of how it was handled fascinating. I was 12 or 13 when it became a huge story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice Queen Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 21 hours ago, Return of the Cookies said: You've got it backwards. Dugas didn't remember his partners, his partners remembered him more often due to his unique characteristics. He wasn't a hero either. He knew he had AIDS, yet continued to have a lot of sexual encounters. Selma Dritz has said in an interview that she told him to stop and he ignored her. Dugas was filmed in Toronto at an AIDS conference publicly stating that he wasn't going to stop having sex because(at the time) no one knew what the root cause was. Anyone who's interested in the topic needs to read Jacques Pepin's "The Origins of AIDS". He has gathered all the historical material from Africa to give the best picture of how HIV emerged. I think I read that. Does he talk about HIV-1 having an SIV origin (something that I always thought was obvious but without experimental evidence)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Return of Rhaenys Kitten Posted November 5, 2016 Share Posted November 5, 2016 On 11/1/2016 at 0:32 PM, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said: I think I read that. Does he talk about HIV-1 having an SIV origin (something that I always thought was obvious but without experimental evidence)? IIRC, yes. The link to chimps has been firmly established. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Return of Rhaenys Kitten Posted November 5, 2016 Share Posted November 5, 2016 On 11/1/2016 at 8:03 AM, zelticgar said: The research paper stated he remembers up to 10% of his partners but the Dritz interview you mentioned clearly contradicts thats. Very interesting. I'll check out the book you mentioned. I have always found the outbreak and the story of how it was handled fascinating. I was 12 or 13 when it became a huge story. I'd recommend the UCSF oral history on the AIDS epidemic. It's a fascinating looking into what happened in San Francisco and the west coast. https://www.library.ucsf.edu/collections/archives/manuscripts/aids/oh I'll need to hit the local science library and read the full Nature article. The AIDS epidemic is indeed fascinating. We're barely 20 years past the worst of it, and it's largely disappeared from collective memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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