Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic by Richard A. McKay | Audiobook

What this episode covers

Listen to free audiobook with a 30 day free trial : https://esound.space/audible Title: Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic Author: Richard A. McKay Narrator: Paul Woodson Format: Unabridged Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins Language: English Release date: 11-15-17 Publisher: HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books Genres: History, American Summary: In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaetan 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 15 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. Contact: [email protected]