All language subtitles for Killing Patient Zero

[Film reel clacking]

[Warbling]

♪♪

Gaynor: Um, I don't think I f--
really feel any anger.

You know, what I feel
is regret at how, um...

One personal story
that I'll tell you is,

a very good friend -- probably
one of my best friends --

he was -- uh,
had moved to Toronto,

and we were always in touch.

We got together
from time to time.

And then, as time goes on,
your kind of --

you know, your context
kind of broadens,

and you don't see them as much.

And one night, um,
my phone rang,

and it was m-my friend.

And there --there was a lot
of people in my apartment,

and he just called to say hi.

And, basically, I said,
"Hi, great to hear from you."

And I said, uh, "Wow, like,
are you still alive?"

Meaning, "I haven't heard
from you in a while,

and I can't
talk to you right now

because there's a bunch
of people here.

So, can I call you back?"
And he said, "Sure."

So I hung up.

I didn't call him back.

And about a week later,
I heard that he had died,

and I realized that
he was calling to say goodbye.

[Laughs softly]
And I had -- I said,

"Are you still alive?"

Not even knowing
that he was sick.

Like, I didn't know
that he had AIDS.

Uh, so...

that's just, like,
a personal instance,

but it -- it still really
haunts me, actually.

♪♪

♪♪

[Birds chirping]

♪♪

[Chirping travels
left to right]

[Airplane engine fades in]

[Engine roaring]

[Sarah Vaughan's "Fever
[Adam Freeland Remix]" plays]

Bergman:
"Patient Zero" is the name

doctors and the medical
detectives used

to describe this man --
the airline steward --

to protect his identity.

I have spoken
of Patient Zero

to people who weren't around
at that time,

and when they realized that --
who I'm talking about

and that I actually
knew that person

and that that was a --
a real person

rather than, you know,
somebody eight foot tall

dripping blood from the mouth,

[Laughs]
I-It was -- Yeah.

It's as if I'm talking about

having known
Joan of Arc personally.

Reporter 1:
The man was Gaétan Dugas,

a 32-year-old
Air Canada steward from Quebec

who died in 1984.

None of the straight people
that I've talked to kn--

even know what Patient Zero was.

They didn't know
who Patient Zero was

or what it was,

which is not the case
with gay people.

I mean, if you're gay,
you know Patient Zero.

Patient Zero was a man,

the central victim,
and victimizer.

The most widespread part

is the idea that
this is the man

who introduced AIDS
to North America.

Shilts: I don't know whether
he actually brought

the epidemic to the country,

but he certainly was the person

who spread it from one end
of the country to the other.

There is just so much wrong

about the concept
of a "patient zero."

The second part is that

not only did he
cause the epidemic

by being the first case,

but he was somehow
doing it deliberately --

that he was trying to spread
his infection far and wide

across the United States
and beyond.

Reporter 1: He reportedly
crisscrossed North America,

feeding an enormous
homosexual appetite

with hundreds of liaisons.

This, um, sort of
golden man-child...

[Chuckles]
...if you will.

A very handsome airline steward.

And, suddenly, to die
on the front page like that...

Dugas's family would only say

that parts of the story
are false,

and that only God
knows the truth.

It's funny to say --
Gaétan always used to say to me,

"One day, I'll be a star."
[Laughs]

Well, [Laughs] he might be
a star now, you know?

Like, he go--
I mean, he was known.

Like, people knew him,

but I don't think
that's what he meant

when he said, "One day,
I'll be a star, darling."

Okay.

♪♪

Woman: ♪ F-F-Fever ♪

Man: The chair is yours.

[Echoing]
The chair is yours.

The chair is yours.

♪ Feel the burn ♪

♪ Feel the burn ♪

♪ Feel the burn ♪

♪♪

♪ Fever, fever, fever,
fever, feeeeever ♪

♪ Feel the burn ♪

♪ Feel the burn ♪
♪ Feel the burn ♪

♪ Fever, fever, fever,
fever, feeeeever ♪

I'm Ray Redford.

I was a friend of Gaétan's.

"Gaétan was something different.

A man on the glittering edge.

Flamboyantly and defiantly
and happily gay,

seemingly unconcerned
about what others thought."

♪ Moon lights up the night ♪

♪ Burning, burning, burning ♪

♪ I light up
when you call my name ♪

♪ Know I'm gonna
treat you right ♪

♪ You give me fever ♪

My name is Gaétane,
with a "E" at the end.

Makes me a little bit
different w-- than Gaétan.

Well, I grew up in Montreal,
and he grew up in Quebec City.

So we, um --

we had the same French humor,
[Laughs] if you want.

Eh, you know, I s--
We always blamed the other one

because we're both blonde.

[Laughs] And which?
Gaétan or Gaétane?

No, no, no, no.
I say, "Gaétane."

[Speaking French]

[Laughs]

He was adopted,

and I s-- believe
he had five sisters,

and they just hovered over him.

They just love him.

But that's about the extent

of the family I know.

Wadden: Whatever, uh,
prejudice I had

going into the house --
you know, expecting,

"Who are these people
to have raised this monster?" --

w-was, uh, sort of, uh,
immediately shredded

when I caught sight
of the fridge door

and this prayer card
for Gaétan.

In French, there was,
uh, you know,

"In memory of --
of Gaétan Dugas, uh,

our beloved son."

The love --
There was so much love

in that one little gesture
on the fridge door.

I don't know when he came out
to his family,

but I believe his family knew
for a long time,

and they were very supportive.

Unfortunately, not all
the men I worked with

had that experience.

Um, at least one supervisor
I worked with

who started
as a flight attendant,

his family disowned him
when he came out,

and he never spoke
to them again.

It's to the best
of my knowledge.

♪♪

Growing up gay in the late '60s,
early '70s was unspeakable.

It was something
you couldn't talk about,

confide even in
your closest friends.

When you live in a culture
that tells you

your very innate self is wrong,

you're a perfect
bullying victim.

Growing up, I had
no idea whatsoever --

a-anything about gayness,

gay people, homosexuals.

If you were a young kid,
even a child --

some people were children --
in, say, the '50s or the '60s --

perhaps before,
but I'm not that old --

and you noticed in yourself,

you know, that you were gay
or were af--

you fearfully suspected it,

there was no place
to find out about it.

It didn't exist in
the popular culture at all.

I never was remotely aware
of being gay.

I had very intense friendships
with other girls,

but I never really put,
you know,

five and five together,
let alone two and two.

You know, growing up
in a -- a, you know --

a Chinese --
old fashioned Chinese family,

you -- you just
didn't talk about it.

You didn't learn about it
or anything like that.

And you like to play,
you know, um, skipping

and jump rope
and things like that

rather than baseball.

When I was probably
eight or nine,

two gay guys moved into our --
onto our street.

They bought a house
and moved onto our street.

And everybody was sort of
giggling about --

One liked to garden
and one liked to paint.

And so, it was one of
those things that was sort of,

you know,
really embedded on my mind

that that was not something
that was a good thing.

I remember looking up
the word "homosexuality,"

and it said something
about "extreme" --

you know,
"e-e-extreme perversion"

and "depraved" and all that.

But I remember
how thrilled I was

to discover that I existed.

It was really, uh --
It was sort of strange,

where you would gather up
your sense of self-worth

or who and what you were.

And when there were images,

they were really
incredibly negative.

Freeman: I do remember
"Diamonds Are Forever."

I remember seeing that
as a teenager

with my parents
at the musical theater

on Tremont Street in Boston

and being absolutely mortified

by the very creepy
queer villains

and sitting there
with my parents

and listening to people
sort of laugh at the --

at these, uh, --

It -- It was pretty awful.

1967, CBS had a documentary
I remember watching

that was just so homophobic
and hateful and, uh, really...

Narrator:
"The Homosexuals"...

with CBS News correspondent
Mike Wallace.

Americans consider homosexuality
more harmful to society

than adultery, abortion,
or prostitution.

So, they actually got
a real-life homosexual

to speak on camera,

but they backlit him
and, uh, changed the voice

so that no one would see
who they were.

And so, that was
my first introduction

to know that there were
these strange creatures

called "homosexuals," but they
were obviously so disgusting

that they could not
possibly appear on television.

Narrator: This man is 27.

He was unable to hold a job
because of his inability

to contain his
homosexual inclinations.

He's been in jail three times
for committing homosexual acts.

If he is arrested once more,

he faces the possibility
of life in prison.

Uh, I know that inside now,
I am sick.

I'm not sick just sexually.

I'm sick in a lot of ways.

It was on a little bit
later at night.

It was close to my bedtime.

I remember my parents
watching it,

and I remember wanting to hear
everything that was being said

but afraid that
if I looked too attentive,

it would be
something suspicious.

And it was scar--

From what I heard
and what I could listen to

and from what little I saw,
I remember thinking,

"This is bad.
This is terrible.

This is" --

You know, this is really...

not a way to live one's life.

Narrator: The average
homosexual is promiscuous.

He is not interested in

nor capable
of a lasting relationship

like that
of a heterosexual marriage.

His sex life --
his love life --

consists of a series
of chance encounters

at the clubs
and bars he inhabits.

I mean, I remember myself
thinking in the late '50s,

when I wasn't sure, you know,
what was going on with me --

um, I decided it was a phase
I was going through

and I would just enjoy it.

And if I was still gay
when I graduated from college,

I would just commit suicide.

I was living
in an all-male dorm,

and it was like gym class
around the clock.

You know, "Did you catch
the game last night?"

I mean, I didn't even know what
sport they were referring to.

The guys on my floor
realized I was gay,

and I just --

I just, like, had a breakdown.

I went up on the roof
of the high-rise dorm.

I actually thought about
jumping off.

We didn't want to be --

Well, I sure did not
want to be flamboyant.

I was holding back all the time

because you didn't want to
come across as being "that way."

So...

I preferred to not be perceived
as being gay.

Somehow, I got the impression
that I -- I -- I --

I would be treated
better that way,

where Gaétan was
already so obvious

that he must have
dealt with that

by just being even more glowing.

Bec-- He would have been obvious
as a gay person.

Uh, I thought it was
very brave of him.

He's never a-- He was not
holding back anything.

He was ahead of his time,
in a way -- he was.

He was who he was,

and he didn't pretend
to be straight.

Uh, some of the men
I worked with past,

he didn't -- he didn't
really pretend anything.

Um, internalized homophobia
was a given.

It would be like
if you talked about --

if you talk about
any minority --

Blacks or women --
if you just scratch --

or Jews --
if you scratch the surface,

you will discover a lot
of internalized prejudice.

I remember having a boyfriend
who had, again,

such internalized homophobia

that he said to me,
at one point,

"I think that there's" --

"I think the worst thing
that can happen to somebody

is being gay."

It was one
of those relationships

where I realized
there was no possibility

of that working out,

because if he didn't love

what was an integral
part of him,

how could he love somebody
who represented that?

Well, I-I'm reminded
of Paul Monette

and his -- his --
his thesis

that we all make
fine concierges.

That there's just something
about a gay man or a gay woman

that wants to please others,

um, that is still se-- searching
for a level of acceptance

and, um, understanding

that is always sometime
seems to be

just -- just outside
of their grasp.

Coming of age
in the '60s and '70s,

there was a constant message
out there -- a negative message

that two gay men
couldn't love each other.

I mean, it was
considered a joke.

It was considered unworkable.

It was considered a-a fantasy.

And that pernicious lie

that gets woven into your psyche
and into your being...

um, kind of contributed
to the kind of lifestyle

that led to these
rising epidemics of STDs.

But underneath it all,
there is that message --

you know, that two men
together is just --

As one expert said,

"One penis plus one penis
equals nothing."

As if we're always reduced
to our sexuality

instead of our humanity.

♪♪

♪♪

People who are young

do not understand
in any real way --

even if they know the fact --

homosexuality
was against the law.

It was against the law.

Not just "your parents
didn't like you,"

you know, or your --
you know, people

you went to school with
didn't like you.

It was actually a crime.

Stewart: There was a special
squad of police

who used to hang out
in public washrooms

looking for gay behavior

and then arresting people
who exhibited it.

And those names and numbers
would go in the paper.

♪♪

We were warned about
who -- who to speak to.

Uh, if the guys were
too good-looking,

they were possibly cops

who were in there, um,
to pick you up

and then beat you up.

Take them down
to, uh, one of the beaches,

and basically
leave them there beat up.

which was kind of,
um, you know,

a -- a regular
weekend happening.

If you were found out --

I mean, a lot of people
kind of --

people kind of knew,
if you played the game right,

you'd be okay.

But if you affirmed
or asserted yourself

or pushed in any way,
shape, or form,

lose your job like that.

You lose your job anyway
without doing that.

There were no civil liberties
protections of any kind.

♪♪

♪♪

[Thunder crashing]

Denneny: Stonewall was like
a thunderclap.

The fact that
gays had fought back

was astonishing to me.

There was a generation
of young gay people

who were more militarized.

They weren't content with,

"Oh, well, you really shouldn't
be raiding gay bars.

You shouldn't be
arresting drag queens."

When it yet again
got raided by the police,

the patrons decided,
"Enough is enough.

We're not going to
put up with this anymore."

And there was what's referred to
as the Stonewall riots.

And that -- for most
certainly gay men --

um, marks th-the beginning
of the gay liberation movement.

All: [Chanting]
Gay rights now!

Gay rights now!
Gay rights now!

Gaétan Dugas epitomized
a politic of a deep pleasure

in the community we built up
out of Stonewall

against the odds --
against the Anita Bryants,

against the rise
of the Reagan right.

I love homosexuals,
if you can believe that.

I love them enough
to tell them the truth,

because I know that there
is hope for the homosexuals --

that if they're willing
to, uh, turn from, uh, sin

the same as any individual,

that, uh -- that they can be
ex-homosexuals,

the same as there can be
an ex-murderer

an ex-thief, or ex-anybody.

Chorus: ♪ Air Canada ♪

♪ Gives you the sky ♪

♪ Come share our pride ♪

Levaque:
We had a crew lounge

where we had to check in
all the time,

and they were -- everybody was
talking about Gaétan --

how beautiful he was,
and so on.

So I was obviously
curious to see.

And one day, I was in
the comms center,

and I saw him.

Big smile.

And we clicked right away.

We -- we were
friends instantly.

I appreciated
working with Gaétan

because I didn't have to
follow him around.

I didn't have to say,
"Well, you know,

this is how
we're supposed to do it.

Why are you taking shortcuts?"

Working for an airline

was really a good home
for -- for gay -- gay guys,

gay people, lesbian,
ehm, because they were

extremely, extremely
good workers.

Of course, the airline,
they were not blind to all this.

They hired a lot of gay people.

In fact, I would say
at the time,

it must have been
at least 75%,

80% of the guys were gay.

Bisson: Word was out,
at least among the gay people --

and probably even more
around the street people --

that here was this, you know,
uh, outrageous gay guy...

um, you know, who, um --

Well, outrageous gay guy.

Oh, yes.
That was Gaétan's attitude.

Yeah.
Like, you know?

He doesn't have a problem
about being gay.

You do, so deal with it.

He even add this shirt
that just -- that --

tight, tight, tight,

which was not the --
the airline rule.

But he -- You know, he --

And his pants were so tight

you could see everything,
basically.

I would say he was more
than fairly [Laughs] flamboyant.

He was incredibly flamboyant.

He loved eyeshadows --

a little bit of blue
or purple --

and he, um, also had, um,
uh, mascara.

How do you describe charisma?

You know, but, yes,
he walked down the hall,

and you could see him
stand out, you know?

But he was very kind of, uh --

You know, he flowed.

But a great personality.

You could tell right away.

Very smiling
and joking right away.

Urevig:
Both of us, we used to

color our hair
the same color [Laughs],

and we'd do it on his couch

watching
"The Young and the Restless."

Levaque: I did get
a white Corvette.

Well...he said,

"Oh, we must go for a ride.

We must go for a ride."

So we did...

and you'd -- you would think
that Gaétan would sit down

in the passenger seat,
and that's it.

No, he was sitting in the back

the moment we got
to Young Street

waving at the people.

And I said, "I don't care."

You know, everybody was laughing
in a way or waving.

Man: Actually,
I've got copies

of those pictures
right here.Oh, you did? Okay.

Yeah, I'm wondering
if you would --So, can you see one?

Can you -- Here.Ah.

Gaétan i-in my --

the white Corvette.
[Laughs]

My best friend that died from
AIDS, [Indistinct] McDonald.

Yeah.
He's right there.

He was with Gaétan
at the time.

Hairdresser in Yorkville.

The sweetest man.

French Canadian again.

That was a good time

because there was --

Was AIDS around at the time?

I don't know,
but there was no worry.

We were having fun.

♪ Ooh ♪

♪♪

♪ Ooh-ooh ♪

♪♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪♪

♪ Ooh-ooh ♪

The '70s were just fabulous.

Um, you know,
not only was there was all --

there was all this sex,

and there was all this --
all these drugs going around,

and we didn't yet know

that drugs were really
not a good idea.

Levaque: You know, it is true
that you could not believe

what New York was like
back then.

You know, people would le--
be -- I w--

I would be, like,
walking down the street

with a friend of mine --
a -- a man who's gay --

and I-- I would be
talking to him,

and then he would be gone.

You know, and he would
be like -- He saw someone

in the street, they looked at
each other, and they left.

Rich:
All through the '70s,

sex was kind of
the gay man's obligation.

You had to prove
that you were a gay man

by having as much sex
as possible

because this was gay liberation.

Stewart: And so, I remember
being introduced to Gaétan.

We didn't really click,

and I -- I can tell you why
is because Gaétan

was a much more
sexually adventurous person

than I ever was.

He was really, I think,
the first gay man

that went out and said,
"This is my lifestyle."

Lebowitz:
And I remember saying to the
straight guy, who I didn't know,

"Are you telling me that if
there was a street in New York

filled with beautiful
20-year-old girls

who you could just look at

and take into a doorway
or something,

that you wouldn't do it?
You would do it.

You just can't do it
because women won't do it."

I mean, a small price to pay

for owning the world,
I would say.

Being in a queer club

or just a disco club early on,

once you make it, you know,
in the door past the doormen,

there's liberation
on the dance floor.

Denneny:
What it was, was anonymous.

You did not know
the name of the person,

which meant you did not know

whether this person
was a truck driver,

you know, or Vice President
of Chase Bank.

Lebowitz: Because we thought
that sex was good for you.

Like kale.

Like, New York was a--
a-an orgy.

I don't even describe it.

And -- And, to me,
it seemed like

you couldn't possibly have sex
with so many different people.

What could be healthier?
What could be more delightful?

Berkowitz:
Feminists were celebrating
and reclaiming clitoral orgasm

as -- as essential
to women's sexuality.

It was as if gay men
were busy discovering

that the other half
of their dick

was inside their rectum.

It was a golden age while.

Oh, it was.

Yeah, a golden age.

♪♪

Houses in, like --
Well, in the '70s?

Kind of fun.

Kind of great.

I mean, you know.

Stoner: The bathhouses
were meeting places.

That's where you met people.

You went dancing,
and then you went

to the bathhouse, you know?

You're probably aware
that the Continental Baths

had Bette Midler.

Maley: No one had to say, "Oh,
this is Rock Hudson calling."

We would walk him around
to the booths

and shove him in a booth,
and you could hear someone go,

"Oh, my God,
it's Rock Hudson!" [Laughs]

Elton John is right there,
and he's dancing right beside.

Denneny: Calvin Klein recently
in "The New York Times"

made a comment saying
that the three great decades

of the 20th century
were Berlin in the '20s,

Paris and the '30s,
and New York City in the '70s.

And I -- I agree with him.

They had discotheques

and yes-gay discotheques
everywhere --

London, New York,
San Francisco --

all these places
that we flew to.

And I got very clearly, I think,

that, uh, Gaétan liked
having encounters

that were no responsibility.

Levaque:
Sliding his business card.

Or, th-- Or, they were
coming from passengers.

Watson: Gaétan had said,
"Di-Did you notice

the -- the guy in
such-and-such's seat?

Cute.

I bet you I can
make more time with him

than you can."

Uh, which often was true.
[Laughs]

"This guy
is definitely straight.

There's no way, Gaétan."

Well, you know, he's gonna
do anything with him,

but the passenger go.

It was more important

to have a party for him,
obviously.

Berkowitz: But it was
such a revelation...

uh, to discover that --

that anal sex could be
pleasurable and clea--

I mean, it was kind of
an acquired taste.

You didn't just -- Usually,
you didn't jump into it.

There was a whole subculture

that went with learning
how to bottom --

learning how to relax,
learning how to douche,

learning how to open up.

You know,
it wasn't just about sex.

It was about men loving man.

It was about seeing other
gay men as your brother

and caring about them
and making love to them

and being tender with them
and affectionate with them

and having relationships
with them.

Gaynor: Gaétan actually told me
that he had a project

of having sex with
a different man every night.

It was just kind of
an entertainment.

Like, it -- it was a project
he worked on

with great, uh, intensity
and effort and success.

Well, you know, if you scored,
say, two nights a week,

and you did that for a year,
that's 100 people.

So, from '71 to '81,
that's 1,000 people.

Your average gay man
probably had sex

with 1,000 people
in that decade.

And I'm sure
Gaétan Dugas had sex

with many more
than 1,000 people.

Ooh, yes.

He was an extremely sexual man.

He was always ready.
[Laughing]

Always ready, okay?
You never knew.

I was going to work,
and he had his backpack,

and, er, there was something
in the backpack, and it fell.

So, I said,
"Oh, what's that --"

[Gasps]
[Speaking French]

I can't go anywhere
without that." [Laughing]

I'm sorry.

So he picked it up right away
and put it in his pocket

Like, "Was he sexual?"
I would say so.

♪ Ooooooh-ooh ♪

Sex, drugs, disco.

♪ Ooh-ooh ♪

Uh, sex.

♪ Ooooooh-ooh ♪

Berkowitz:
But as the '70s wore on

and the commercialization
of gay male sex exploded,

you no longer had to care
about the movement.

You could just come in,
get your rocks off, and go.

And it didn't really force you
to, um, think politically

about, um, this being
an opportunity for America

to move forward
in terms of its empathy

and understanding
and bridging all these divides

that the culture creates
to keep us apart

instead of united.

♪♪

Murray:
You know, it's very easy
to fall into the hedonistic side

because it's intoxicating,

but there was a price to pay,
I think, for that.

You could see from
the lifestyle of New York

that candles were being burned
at both ends.

[Clicks tongue]
Yeah, it's great fun.

But if it was a lifestyle,
uh, it was gonna burn out.

Young men full of testosterone
and opportunity.

Something was likely to happen.

Friend of mine called from
the other side of San Francisco,

but he was straight,
and he said,

"Hey, have you heard about
the new gay cancer?

Ha-ha, there's a gay cancer
out there."

I w-- Tha-- No.

That's crazy.

Being gay has nothing
to do with cancer.

Um...

And then, it just got awful.

It got worse and worse
and worse from that moment on.

I wish I had never heard
the term "gay cancer."

♪♪

Dr. Mass:
This is very early '81.

There's something going on,

Uh, there's some people

in the New York City
emergency rooms

with gay men, you know,
who are seriously ill.

And, uh, within a week or so,

there were a couple
of deaths reported.

I had referred
a man with a rash --

gay man with
a peculiar sort of rash

to my consultant dermatologist.

And he phoned me back
to postulate to me,

"Isn't it a little strange?

The-- All these
very strange rashes

that we've started
seeing in gay men?"

I remember the first person
I knew who had AIDS,

but no one knew what he had,
and he died.

I was so shocked.
You know, "What did he die of?"

Because we were too young
to be dying.

Reading the newspaper
that morning,

there was the famous
little paragraph.

"Eight New Yorkers died
of mysterious gay cancer."

And word was filtering
from Fire Island.

The whispers had begun.

There were a lot of gay men
coming to my practice

who had unexplained
lymphadenopathy,

and lymphadenopathy
is swelling of lymph glands.

It could be in the neck,
under the arms.

And there was
no easy explanation for it,

as well as this
peculiar occurrence

of Pneumocystis
carinii pneumonia

in gay men in San Francisco
and Los Angeles.

McCaskell: We began to realize
that this wasn't

just a crazy,
homophobic media story.

There was something serious
going on here.

I was totally paranoid
and scared shitless

I was in a state of
perpetual paranoia,
and so was everybody.

Everybody thought,
"Oh, my God, I've got it."

So, this young nurse had been
admitted to the hospital

the night before, uh,
in September of that year.

Came to my office
with a purple spot

on the bottom of each foot...

...and biopsy showed
that it was Kaposi's sarcoma.

Kaposi's sarcoma
had been recognized

as a very rare form
of skin cancer --

um, little reddish
or purplish lumps

appearing on the skin,
often on the feet,

and, uh, mostly seeming
to affect older men.

Reporter 2: Normally, there are
fewer than 20 cases

of Kaposi a year
in the United States,

but in the last 18 months,

more than 300 cases
have been reported.

The Kaposi's sarcoma that was
affecting the younger gay men

as part of this
emergent new condition, um,

became known as AIDS
was far more aggressive,

far more disseminated.

The-- the thing about it

the sort of vaguely
got my attention

was the idea that it was
an infectious cancer,

'cause there aren't any

infectious cancers,
by and large.

Well, there are some cases

of something we don't really
know ex-- yet what it is.

They all seem to have
immune deficiency.

We have no idea
what's causing it.

"Is this something?

Okay, is this something
we should all know about?"

And beginning to -- to kind of
come to terms with -- with that.

Lebowitz: I remember
in San Francisco,

people called it
"gay waiter's disease."

But of course, I mean,
"gay waiter"

was like a redundant phrase
in San Francisco.

A lot of people got it.

Bang-bang-bang.
With the airline, mostly.

We were all over the place.

It's...

I-It's hard to explain
how you feel at the time,

where you can die
if you do what?

I don't know.

It was, um...

a time when we didn't stop
partying and having sex --

because that connection
hadn't been made --

but there was there a unease
in the gay community about,

did we actually dare
go out i-into a club

and, uh, you know,
breathe the air

from all these gay people?

It's a bit difficult
in the sense of,

sometimes, you need to know
what you're looking for

in order to find it.

And when you really
don't know what it is,

it becomes that much
harder to find.

You didn't have to be
a rocket scientist

to figure out that
this was going to be a problem

when you saw two cases
and then four cases

and then eight cases.

I mean, that's
an exponential growth.

Watts:
My hunch at the time

was that this was gonna be
an epidemic...

and, unfortunately,
my hunch was right.

♪♪

Dr. Jaffe: I think
when w-we realized

what a big
epidemic it was,

it became
very frightening.

You know,
how is this gonna end?

I remember talking to
a very prominent virologist

in Boston who said,
"What if it becomes airborne?"

And I s-- all I could say is,
"Everybody will die."

It was a terrible period
because of the uncertainty.

You don't know exactly --
how is it transmitted?

"Am I infected with the --
a death sentence here?"

The-There were all sorts
of weird theories.

Uh, the -- the most common
was poppers.

Poppers are wonderful.
[Chuckles]

They make you feel
a sense of euphoria.

They're basically
vasodilators.

They give you --
They give you a quick high,

and, uh, they were being
used a lot amongst gay men.

And everybody was praying

that it was gonna be
poppers, you know?

'Cause we could give up poppers.

Or it was gonna be S&M,
or it was gonna be fisting,

or it was gonna be something
we could give up.

Gay men were getting a lot
of infections at that time --

hepatitis and amoebas
and whatnot.

And it was thought that

they were overloading
their immune systems,

and this -- what you were
seeing with AIDS,

which was clearly
an immune system disease,

was the result
of this overload.

Was this the CIA?

Was this a urban myth?

Let's -- Let's ignore it
at all costs,

because it's --
it's got to be a --

it's got to be
a right-wing plot.

And, certainly, the right-wing
exploited it and demonized us

in -- in exactly that way.

So it's very understandable

that people like myself
or Gaétan

would plug our ears somewhat,
especially in the early years,

even as we started to see
friends getting sick

and friends dying.

♪♪

Dr. Jaffe: Throughout
the summer of 1981,

we recorded interviews
from AIDS cases.

We were struck
by how sick they were --

also about
their lifestyles.

That they had tended to be
very sexually active gay men,

travel a lot,
use a lot of drugs,

but we didn't know
what the risk factors were.

So we developed
a case definition,

distribute it to doctors,
health departments,

teaching hospitals.

And as for cases,
we reported

two health departments,
and then to CDC.

Bill Darrow was a -- a --
a research sociologist, uh,

in the STD division

and an expert
on sexual behavior, uh,

both in gay men and
in heterosexual populations.

We get this report
that three men in Los Angeles

are -- all are in
the same hospital.

They apparently have
the same condition.

And the lover
of one of these men says --

and the three have had sex
with one another.

This suggests
that it's not poppers.

You know, he didn't say

that they were sniffing
the same substance.

That they had sex
with one another.

That's when the question came.

"Well, are there any other
sexual connections

in Los Angeles?

Let's have Bill Darrow
fly out to Los Angeles

and pursue the possibility
of a cluster of cases

connected by sexual contact
within the last five years."

So the first person that came in
was actually a flight attendant,

and, um, he -- he said
that, you know, um,

"One of my sex partners

has been a very
attractive steward

who flies for Air Canada.

Handsome guy, really nice guy,
and I've had sex with him."

"Can you tell me
any more about him?"

"Well, he kind of has an accent.

Um, can't remember his name."

In the afternoon,
we talked to a second person

and gave a very similar story.

We had to drive all the way out
to Orange County

to interview this third person.

And we got around to this
business of naming sex partners,

and here comes this same

French Canadian
flight attendant.

"Can you remember his name?"

He said, "You know,
I think I've got a card

or some information
in my address book.

Let me -- Let me go see
if I can find it."

So, he excused himself,
he went into his bedroom,

and he came back
with a big smile on his face.

"I've got it!
I've got it! I got it!

Here's his name!

I had sex with him
on Thanksgiving,

8709 Club,

and afterwards,
I came down with hepatitis.

And then, he came back
in December,

I had sex with him again,
and I bet that's when

I got this disease
that I've got now."

"What's his name?"
He says, "Here it is."

Dugas had experienced fever
and noticed swollen lymph nodes

since January, 1980.

When I met him,

he had two visible spots of KS,

visible when he's
wearing clothing.

One was on his forearm,

and one was on
the tip of his nose.

The CDC numbered the cases

in the order in which they came
to the attention of CDC --

the order in which
they were reported.

So there had to have been
56 other people reported to us

before he would --
would report it to us.

And so, that's how
I found out more about him.

And then, I followed up

by calling him
and introducing myself.

And lo and behold, you know,
before anything else happens,

I'm meeting him in New York.

I'm flying up to New York
the next week.

There was certainly
a lot of fear

because there was still a lot
that was unknown about it.

And so, I had no idea

what the impact was
going to be on me, um,

as a result of having
had sex with Gaétan.

So, um, we were just --

a-a group of us
all had just gone out to a --

to a tea dance in the afternoon,

and he was a friend
of a friend of mine.

And one thing led to another,

and we ended up
going home together.

He was very full of life.

He was charming.

Um, he just had a lot of fun
and a lot of energy.

Yeah, it was definitely risky.

I was -- I bottomed
for him, so...

Week after we had, um,
gone home together,

I was talking with
this mutual friend of ours,

and I was saying, you know, "He
seemed like a really nice guy."

And he said, "Oh, yeah.
He's got that weird gay cancer."

And I was like,
"What gay cancer?"

I'd never heard of it.

It was the first sort of time

that anybody had even referenced
something like that,

and I sort of let it drop.

And then, um, I started to hear
a little bit more about it,

and then I started
to see, uh, news about it.

And so, that became much more,
again, embedded in my mind,

and it was something
that started to really impact

my thought process.

♪♪

This was something, um...

with the potential
to impact our community

and -- and --
and other communities

in -- in much bigger ways.

And so, suddenly,
all of these boys

who had had to hide
who they were for years

and pretend they weren't

and deny to their parents
that they were gay

and they weren't married
because they were bachelors.

We don't have bachelors anymore.

Suddenly, they could be
who they were.

And now, we had a disease
come along and say,

"You can't do that"?

We had finally found
our moment in time

where we could have sex.

We could have af fa-- affairs.

We could do
what we wanted, finally,

and no one could say,
"No, you can't do that" anymore.

And to have AIDS
crash into that party --

Oh, my goodness.

Murray: So, you had,
on the one hand,

this gay sexual liberation

and -- and people
really experiencing

what it was like to be gay
in a way they'd never

been able to do before.[Crowd chanting]

And a move to the right,
from a government standpoint --

it was a perfect storm

because it allowed that group
to come in and say,

"This is the price you pay.

What you are
and what you do is wrong."

All: [Chanting]
No more faggots!

No more faggots!
No more faggots!

No more faggots!Denneny: A disease that
only hits gay men,

hits them in their sexuality.

I mean, i-it was like
the perfect metaphor

for the homophobia
of the whole society.

And it did seem to me

that reality
is not supposed to come

already packed
with the metaphors.

You know, it's like
everything we gained was --

looked like it was being
taken away from us again.

I still remember
a relative in Europe...

When they found out
that I was gay,

and they just turned to me
and said,

"Well, AIDS will get you."

♪♪

The timing of it all
was really eerie,

so there is something
uncanny about it.

It's very Shakespearean,
the way that this happened.

To have this breakthrough --

to get this incredible
outpouring, um, of support,

of acceptance, of a community
coming into its own,

of demanding a --
a place at the table,

of having great success
in almost every sector --

and then to just be
wiped out, um,

as if in some diabolical plan.

Willie Brown actually
said this to me early on.

He said something
to the effect of,

"This occurring right now --

with gay rights
just having happened --

would be like
telling black people

they have to go back
to the back of the bus."

[Slaps hands on legs]

♪♪

Darrow:
When I went to interview
the "Out of California" case,

I was very impressed with him.

He -- He seemed like
an intelligent person.

He was very well dressed.

At the time,
he didn't have any hair

because he had just completed
a round of chemotherapy.

But he was very concerned
about his condition

and about the concern
of other people, as well.

Uh, because many of his friends
in New York City

and even some in Canada
had very similar symptoms

to the symptoms
that he was experiencing,

and some of his friends
were so ill that they had died.

So he was very cooperative

when I started asking him
questions about his sex life.

And I said,
"How about your sex partners?"

And he says, "Well, I can
remember a few of them,

but, gee, I've had so many,
and I hope you understand why.

I'm in a different town
every night.

I'm a young guy, so I go out
every night and I have fun."

So he averaged about 250
different sex partners a year.

I said, "Do you have
an address book?

Little black book?"

He says, "I do."

I said, "Would you mind
sharing the names with me?"

He said, "No, I'll be glad to."

And he started reading me notes.

He read me 72 names
before he said,

It's 6:30.
I've got to go."

If other people had
the same amount

of information that he had,
we probably would have been able

to make many more connections

and been able to have solved
this jigsaw puzzle

much faster than we did.

Here is the Morbidity
and Mortality Weekly Report.

In this report,
there were no figures.

There's no graphs,
but there is reference

to an "out of California" case.

Everybody gets the idea
that this guy, at that point,

was the person who brought AIDS
to California.

That was sort of --
It wasn't called AIDS yet,

by the way, at this point.

It was still called GRID.

GRID -- Gay Related
Immunodeficiency,

which made the whole disease
seem as though

it was the result of somebody's
sexual orientation

rather than action --

You know, some action
they had taken,

something they had encountered.

A microbe.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

We had this hotline
on Castro Street...

and this patient would turn up.

The minute he did,
the hotline would light up.

He's here.

He's having sex with people.

He tells them he's --
he, uh, has the gay cancer.

By the end
of the summer of 1982,

Kaposi's sarcoma was summoning
a huge amount of attention

and upset in San Francisco.

♪♪

Anybody with KS lesions
who continued to go out

would draw attention.

And given that we know
that Gaétan did not like

to be told what he could
or could not do,

it seems quite likely
that he would draw attention.

[Door slams]Gaétan Dugas, uh,

was very comfortable

going to various
public health people

to talk about his disease.

He met with Selma Dritz,
and according to Selma, uh,

she counseled him
that he should not have sex --

that he was, perhaps, dangerous.

And he said, "You're not
going to tell me

how I should behave."

I told him that he was getting
other people sick with it,

and he said, "It's my right
to do whatever I want.

My civil rights."

Gaétan had, uh --
uh, different beliefs

a-about, uh --
a-a-about his condition.

Uh, his approach was,
"Show me, prove to me

how this disease is transmitted,

and if I'm doing anything
that i-is transmitting it,

I may acknowledge it --

if you can prove to me
that this is the case."

I don't remember
what, uh, triggered me

to call Air Canada,
but I did call Air Canada.

I wanted to talk
to the, um, Medical Director

a-and, um, find out
if there was some way

to limit his ability to travel.

A doctor telling us
we've got to start w--

you know, uh, watching
what we do sexually

and that there's, you know --
it's -- it's troubled,

and we gotta, you know,
curtail our activities.

I totally understood
the f-- terror

that gay men had about AIDS
pushing us back into the arms

of the medical establishment.

It was only in the very
early '70s that, um --

that, uh, homosexuality
was no longer seen as a disease,

It was taken out of the, uh --

the Diagnostic
Statistical Manual

of the American Psychiatric
Association.

And so, doctors had always
been trying to cure us.

A flight attendant in 1982

looked terrible
on chemotherapy --

like death warmed over.

He had lost hair and weight.

Nonetheless, Dugas' attitude
carried him through.

He was always hopeful

and kept saying
he would beat it.

I can remember sending Gaétan
encouraging letters.

I have a card that he sent me
in January, 1982,

when he was feeling depressed
about the loss of hair.

Saying he feels like an alien.

♪♪

96% of all the people
I saw then died.

Smallpox, Ebola,
only kills 60%...

and we were talking about --

virtually everyone
was going to die.

Had that been happening to
any other group in the society,

there would have been
massive hysteria

all over the country, you know?

And, in fact, what we got
was total silence.

It's more like what happens
in a war, you know?

Where, you know,
all of a sudden,

a whole generation of people,
you know, are put

in this incredible danger,
and many of them die.

It was such
an extreme difference

from people who are like 25
and look 25,

And then, in five minutes,
they looked 95.

It -- It's terrible because
it's a slow death, in a way,

and you see the body
basically decompose

in front of your face.

A -- A beautiful man
is turning into...

...nothing.

There's a fellow actor...

uh, named, uh, Joe Cappetta,

that became ill
and died fairly early on

who was hospitalized.

The food service worker

wouldn't bring his --
his tray into the room.

Just set it
on the floor outside.

A lot of hospitals --

especially outside
of San Francisco --

they wouldn't let the partner
come visit their lover

in -- in bed as he was dying

because he wasn't
a "family member."

They didn't want you
around at all.

You -- They were ashamed of you.

And you did this
to him, probably.

♪♪

We were being vilified
by the media,

by right wing politicians.

I mean, truly vilified.

But then, we have to remember

that there were
mainstream figures

who suggested
putting gay people --

people with HIV --
in -- in camps.

Um, tattooing "HIV"
on -- on our bodies.

The only way to stop them --
stop it is quarantine people.

I-I-I don't think
there's any way around it.

I think they're gonna
have to do it.

Lovers were thrown out
of their boyfriends' apartments.

Um, they were not allowed

to go to the funeral
of their partner who had died.

Uh, it's -- it's --

it's really grotesque,
the way that people behave.

You know, very much
in the same way

that, in 2016, you said,

"Who are these people
who voted for that man?"

You knew who those people were
back then in the 1980s.

They haven't gone away.

♪♪

I mean, the
Reagan Administration

simply didn't want to
acknowledge the problem.

It was said at the time --
and I think it's true --

if the outbreak had occurred
in a heterosexual population,

they would be all over it.

But it was easy
to marginalize gay men

at the time and say,
"Well, who cares?"

There was an interview
done with Larry Speakes,

who was the Press Secretary
to President Reagan,

where he was asked about
the AIDS epidemic.

And he said, "What's that?"

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Laughter, groaning]

[Laughter]

[Echoing laughter fades]

♪♪

Patient Zero was clearly
a very helpful person to us.

He didn't have to be.
He didn't have to give us

the names of his sex
partners, but he did,

and that turned out
to be extremely useful

because it allowed Bill Darrow
to contact those people,

follow up on them,

find out who else
they had sex with,

and construct the cluster.

But then, we wanted to see
how far the cluster went.

We only had information
about Los Angeles

and this one
Out of California Case.

So I went up to New York,
and I followed up

on the 72 different
partners that he named.

The important thing
was to try to show

that there were connections
between Los Angeles cases

and cases in other parts
of the United States.

Here's the original drawing

on a piece of, um,
yellow paper...

about Case 57,

which was the person
later referred to

as the Out of California Case

and a drawing
showing connections.

Two exposures
with a case in 1979.

Um, a case -- Case Number 40.

Um, here he is going to Toronto.

Here he is at NYU.

So, here, "Case 57 is described

as a 30-year-old
flight attendant from Toronto."

[Engines roaring]Levaque: I lost contact

with Gaétan for a while

the moment he --
he left for Vancouver.

And I saw him once.

He was running
through the terminal.

And we embrace, and we chat,

but he had very, very short hair
at the time.

He had a few spots on his face.

And I noticed that there was
a fairly common theme

that, e-essentially,
Gaétan in Vancouver

was the personage --
the face of AIDS,

a-and it just seemed
so ludicrous.

There were stories that Gaétan
was having unprotected sex

with, uh, other --
other people.

And i-it was, uh --
h-he was reported

that he was in the bars

and he was going home
with people,

and this sort of thing.

And AIDS Vancouver
felt like they needed

to have some kind of response
to address what --

what these rumors represented.

I do remember specifically
having a conversation with him

about promiscuity
and bathhouses and etc., etc.

He said, "You know,
people just don't get it,

eh, because if I was
in the bathhouses

the way they say that
I'm in the bathhouses,

I'd be exposing myself
to all kinds of random,

opportunistic infections.

I have --
I don't know m-much about it,

but I learned when I did go
to the bathhouses

or have a lot of casual sex,
I used to come down with things,

and they were
hard to get rid of,

so I just stopped doing it."

He wasn't having casual sex.

Good evening.

I'm Michael Papas
with Channel 10

"Gayblevision Vancouver."

There was a recent panel
discussion in Vancouver.

on the panel were doctors
and other men

associated with
the AIDS problem.

An overflow crowd attended,

seeking information
and other advice

as to how to deal with
the AIDS problem in Vancouver.

On the panel that evening

was Dr. Brian Willoughby,
who explained.

AIDS --
the -- the disease

we're here to talk
about today, then --

is a new phenomenon
wherein people's ability

to fight infection
is defective.

They had brought in a v--
uh, a person

from the Gay Men's Health Crisis
in New York City.

What brings me here is our
concern over an epidemic

that is killing
gay men...

all over the world,

The doctors presented as much,
I think, as they knew,

and I -- my recollection is,
they tried to be

pretty scrupulous
about what they didn't know.

So, one of the things
you can do

to decrease your risk
of contracting AIDS

is to decrease the number
of different sexual partners.

There was almost disbelief
in the room

that that was something
that we needed to do,

because it was a New York thing
or a San Francisco thing.

It wasn't a Vancouver thing.

The things we do
know about it

in terms of
who suffers from it...

certainly suggests that it is
some kind of infection.

We, the panel, talked
for maybe about an hour --

you know,
10 or 15 minutes each --

and then the floor
was open for questions.

Popham: Can I -- Can I
take this question?

[Indistinct chatter]

Screwing around didn't --

doesn't give somebody AIDS.

I mean, it does, and it doesn't.

In other words,
every contact you have,

you're increasing your
opportunity of being infected

if, in fact,
this is a contagious agent,

which has never
been proven.

I believe there's some
kind of, um, tests

being done on AIDS
in Vancouver.

Attending that forum
af-affected my life

very, very distinctly

in as much as the concept
of safe sex was introduced.

And I started
to practice safe sex,

which is maybe perhaps
one of the reasons

that I'm still here today.

And probably the third
or fourth person to get up

had a French Canadian accent.

A man went up to the mic.

I only saw him from the back.

And that was Gaétan.

It was a little difficult
to understand exactly --

some of the concepts
he was trying to convey,

but what I appreciated
about his interaction there

was that he was
standing up for himself.

He s-sort of took the tone,

"How can you sit up there
advising people

to have less sexual partners
to avoid an infectious agent

when you don't even know
that this is caused

by an infectious agent?"

Which, on face,
is a valid question.

Okay, hey --

And studies
indicate that --

And it's not everybody.

So there is a -- a chance
of risk involved,

but the majority of the people
are fairly promiscuous.

[Overlapping,
indistinct argument]

It wasn't my place to say,
"Get him off the mic,"

but I could tell that we were --
that it was turning into

not a public
information session,

but a --a kind of battle.

It is speculation,
but --

It got to the place
where I thought...

[Inhales deeply]

"Thhhhhhhh...

This is not really good."

So I leaned over to Jeff Maines
and said, "You know,

we need -- you need to get him
off the microphone soon,

or he will destroy whatever good
we may have done

over the last hour
with these questions."

And I think what was interesting

about Gaétan's attitude
towards that is that, in a way,

he did not want to change
his sexual behavior

because there was
no s-- clear proof.

And...so, again,

I think because he was a--
he was this target

for so many people, he was say--
he was saying to them,

"Prove to me
that this is how you get it,

and then I'll change
my behavior.

But until you can prove that,

I'm not gonna change anything."

"I remember, after
one medical setback,

holding him in his apartment

and him telling me that
he wasn't afraid of being dead.

He was just scared of dying.

He never expressed
any great sense

that life had been unjust.

He just seemed determined
to make the best

of whatever time he had left."

♪♪

Bisson:
I thought it was very brave
of him to still be working.

He'd taken some time off,
and then he'd come back.

I think that was -- He came back
for a last period,

and when he did come back,
he actually looked great.

He was in a good mood,
giggling like he always did.

"Dar- ling."

Gaétan was having trouble
making it to flights,

and he was booking off
last-minute

because he was starting
to feel too ill to work.

More than anything,
he wanted to keep flying.

He didn't want to be
booked off sick.

He loved flying.
That was his family.

That was his freedom.

We didn't know
who would survive this

or who wouldn't survive this.

It was possible
that, you know,

things were going
to work for him.

And so, um, consequently,
I just met him in that spirit.

And, you know, we both giggled,
and as we were giggling,

I just, you know, uh,
touched up his makeup,

because I could see that
it hadn't been

properly applied, you know?

It was too cakey, as well.

I remember it being too cakey

more than not covering
the lesion.

He'd covered the lesion,
but, you know,

just a softer look.
[Laughs]

That was the last time
I saw him.

I didn't see him after that.

♪♪

[Church bell tolling slowly]

[Birds chirping]

♪♪

Key to the success
of the cluster study

was the cooperation
of Case 57, Gaétan Dugas,

whose personal sexual network

extended to a large number
of men in many cities.

For me, the cluster study, um,

is a very interesting landmark
scientifically

'cause it really helped, um,
convince the world

that this was a sexually
transmitted disease.

'Cause here, you have
this cluster of patients

who are connected by lines
which reflect sexual contact.

So, this shows 40 men

who were eventually linked

by sexual contact
by their diagnosis.

And the person
who connected cases

from both the west
and the east

is shown in the middle
of this diagram.

And he has links
to eight different men --

four on the West Coast,
four on the East Coast.

This is the person
that we called

the Out of California Case.

Later on...

we tried to show these cases
by early onset,

and you'll see that this
Out of California Case

was one of two, four, six

who had symptom onset
before 1980.

So he was an early case,

but he wasn't necessarily
the earliest case

in this cluster
of 40 different men.

He originally was called
Patient 57,

then "Patient O"
for Out of California Case.

And that's the way
it was shown and displayed

to my colleagues at CDC.

Few months later, everybody's
talking about "Patient Zero,"

and I don't know
what they're talking about.

"Who are you talking about?
Patient Zero?"

"Come on, Darrow.

You were the one
who told us about him."

"I told you about Patient 57

or the
Out of California Case --

Patient O."

"Oh, that was an "O"?

We thought it was a zero."

♪♪

The "Zero" lost association, uh,
with "Out of California"

and then began to communicate
other meanings --

particularly the association

with zero
as absolute beginning --

but one with
profound consequences

for how the term
was subsequently understood.

♪♪

♪♪

I think, right now,
AIDS is nine parts politics

and one part science,
so writing about the science

and the elegant genetics
of the AIDS virus

misses the point.

The point right now is,
we're not getting treatments

because of
political problems,

and that's not
being written about.

I think it's
important to say

that until the epidemic
started occurring

outside of
the gay community,

that the
mainstream media

largely wasn't
paying attention to it.

You've got to remember
that the problem here

is that we're moving slow
in a situation

where the enemy is time.

Because the more time
you give an epidemic,

the more it's gonna spread.

Reporter 3:
In the early '80s,

Randy Shilts was
the only newspaper reporter

writing regularly about
the spreading AIDS epidemic.

And I think I felt
more of a responsibility, uh,

and a determination
to report on AIDS

'cause, to me,
AIDS wasn't something

that just happened
to other people.

It happened to -- to people
I knew and I care about.

He felt that he was
the only person

that could report on this,
that could deal with this,

and -- and highlight it
and show what it was becoming,

uh, 'cause none
of the other media outlets

were reporting on it.

Denneny:
I was very proud of him.

He forced the "Chronicle"
to let him cover it

when virtually --

eh, there was
nobody else covering it

basically on a daily,
weekly basis.

When you go back
to the history,

the alpha and the omega
of the AIDS epidemic

is the Rock Hudson diagnosis.

That wakens the public
and really wakens the media.

The media starts covering it.

I think it was also
perceived at the time

that Rock Hudson
was heterosexual,

which he wasn't.

And people said,
"Well, if Rock Hudson

could get it,
I could get it."

Shilts:
What happens then is a story
of -- of national failure,

and it gets to the central
thesis of my book,

which is that AIDS
didn't just happen.

It was allowedto happen.

"And the Band Played On" is
the natural outgrowth, really,

of the articles
that Randy's writing

at the
"San Francisco Chronicle."

I think he could see that
this was a issue

bigger than a -- what
a daily newspaper could cover.

Randy Shilts really
went out of his way

to, um, carefully document
in detail --

in excruciating detail --

the moral, ethical,
and criminal negligence

of the Reagan Administration.

Randy Shilts came to CDC
as a newspaper reporter

for the
"San Francisco Chronicle"

early in the epidemic and
interviewed a number of us --

Jim, me, and others.

He attended virtually
every AIDS meeting

in the United States.

He was always there

and always
interviewing people.

I mean, I was probably
interviewed by him

dozens of times.

He asked me a lot of questions
about the cluster study

and Patient Zero and so forth.

Eh, Randy Shilts did what
any good reporter would do

in tracking down Patient Zero.

Well, here's a story of this guy
that's coming to San Francisco

and being identified.

The -- the hotline's
lighting up.

People are talking about him
all over town.

What journalists wouldn't
try to find out who that was?

I've talked to
Marcus Conant about this,

and he confirms that Randy
asked him several times,

was narrowing
things down slowly,

and then called him back
and said,

"I don't need your help.
I've figured out who it is."

Shilts' interview notes are
headed with a boxed inscription.

"Gaétan is Patient Zero."

I remember the moment that Randy
became aware of Gaétan

and how all the s--

charts [Laughs] c-came
back to him.

The researchers from the CDC

were able to track down Gaétan,
and through his cooperation --

and he was very cooperative
with the CDC researchers --

were able to establish
sexual links

between 40 of the first
248 gay men

who were diagnosed with AIDS
in the United States.

That's when I realized, not only
was he going to use my name

and the name -- names
of other government employees,

but he was also going to...

name patients.

And I told him,
"No, don't do this.

This is not a good idea.

You shouldn't
name Patient Zero."

Randy responded,
"I've got to do it.

The government's not gonna
do anything about this problem

unless I name names."

By using everybody's name
in this book --

and I use everybody's name;

he's not singled out at all --

I think I make it --
put the disease

on much more of a human scale.

The publicist
working on the book --

a young woman named Diane --
came up to my office

on Friday afternoon
in tears, saying,

"We're gonna" --

You know, "We're not gonna
get any publicity.

Everybody thinks
it's been covered.

They don't want to cover it.

They're seeing it
mainly as an attack

on the Reagan Administration

and on the medical
establishment -- the CDC."

[Pops lips]
I panicked.

I called up
an ex-boyfriend of mine

who happened to be a publicist,

and I said, "John, I know
you're out of work,

so you have time on your hands.

I'm in big trouble.

I need you to spend the weekend
reading this manuscript."

And he suggested the following,

which I thought
was extraordinarily clever.

"The Band Played On,"
the story of Patient Zero

comes up on 11 pages
out of a 620-page book.

He's only mentioned
in 11 pages.

And he said,
"You pull this material out,

you gathered it together,

and you present it
to the "New York Post,"

a miserably
homophobic newspaper.

This story has
everything they want.

It has beauty.
It has death.

You know,
he's an airline steward,

and best of all,
he's a foreigner.

He said,
"They're gonna eat it up."

Randy hated the idea.

I called him Monday night
after talking with my friend,

and he was appalled.

And he said, you know,
"This is yellow journalism."

I said, Yeah."

But I said,
"If we don't do this,

you're gonna sell 4,000
or 5,000 copies of this book

basically to gay people.

It's gonna have no impact,
you know, on the media.

It's gonna have no impact

on the national, uh,
medical establishment,

and it's not gonna do

what the function
of this book is to do,

which is to put this
on the national agenda."

And he finally agreed.

W-- Very, very reluctantly.

And we presented to the "Post,"
and they fell for it.

It was like cultural judo

where you were using
the strength of your enemy

to get your own...

...end.

And, essentially,
that's what we did.

I mean, he pred-- He told me
exactly the headline.

"The Man Who Gave Us AIDS."

Wadden: When I received
this phone call,

I just happened to pick up
the phone in the newsroom.

And, uh, this young woman
from "60 Minutes," uh,

named Barbara Drury --

um, Researcher Producer,
I think was her role --

um, explained that, uh,
they were doing a documentary

and that one of the main
characters in it

was from Quebec City.

And she needed someone to drive
her to Quebec City from Montreal

and to translate
with the family.

And on the way, she had a copy
of Randy Shilts' book,

"And the Band Played On."

And that's when
the true horror of the story

was revealed to me --
that, uh -- that they were

preparing a documentary
based on this book,

and this book had evidence

that the man who brought AIDS
to North America --

the gay man who done that --
was Gaétan Dugas,

and that he was from
a suburb of Quebec City.

When I walked
in the door of the house,

it was very clear to me
early on that this was a family

who really loved this young man

and, um, who were very sorrowful
about his death.

And they were asking me,
"What" --

You know, "What do you
think we should do?"

I remember them asking me that.

And -- And I said, "Well,
you do one interview,

you're going to have everyone
lined up here at your door."

They were horrified
when they learned

that this book
that was coming out

was going to name Gaétan
as the Patient Zero.

♪♪

Kai Babineaux,
who interviewed me --

I mean, he asked me,
had I ever thought of the impact

it would have on Gaétan's family
and his friends?

And I had to honestly say,
"No, I hadn't."

Bisson: I th-- I can only say,
I think they must have had

a really difficult time

going through
the bad press after,

which I think is,
you know, shocking.

It -- I mean, I find that
to be a crime, nearly.

And his family must have
suffered after his demise

for a long period of time.

I remember his sister,
who was a dental hygienist,

saying, um, you know,
"So, that's the reward he gets

for cooperating
with the researchers?"

♪♪

♪♪

Randy Shilts
was focused on showing

that the institutions
that had been created

to respond to this
very type of -- of tragedy

failed to respond
because of the prejudice

against the people who were
suffering from the disease,

and that was the motivation
behind his book.

By the time President Reagan

delivered his first
address on AIDS

in May 31st of this year
at that AIDS fundraiser here

in -- in Georgetown,
36,000 Americans were dead

or dying of this disease.

What a sad statement that is

that that many people
could be dead or dying

before the President will even
give a speech on the subject.

"The Time" --
"The New York Times,"

within the next --
something like 15 days

had 11 stories on the book.

11 articles in 2 weeks

on a book that
they had refused to review.

"The Band Played On"
essentially broke the silence.

That was the most important
thing the book did.

It -- It basically cracked
that wall of silence.

But, at the same time,
Shilts engages

in his own demonizing,

and I find
particularly unfortunate

his demonizing of the Canadian
flight attendant, Gaétan Dugas,

whom he transforms in the course
of his book into Patient Zero.

And really, that idea of
Patient Zero as a figure --

as a popular term --

comes from
"And the Band Played On."

It's funny how much
the Patient Zero narrative

almost jumps out
from the rest of the book.

It does seem tacked on.

It does s-- It does seem
very opportunistic

and very sensationalistic.

My take on Shilts' construction
of Gaétan Dugas in the book

is that Shilts presents him
to be someone

who is completely uncaring

about how his behavior
might affect other people.

It's an act of projection,
I think, on the author's part.

He takes his own anger
and rage and bitterness,

and he makes this character
called Patient Zero.

What Randy was doing was saying,

"Yes, we are, you know,
fucking ourselves crazy,

and we are mindless, you know,
he-hedonistically" --

You know, some of that is --
a little bit of it is credible,

and some of it
is internalized homophobia.

A real degree of it
is internalized homophobia.

There isn't any gay person
who doesn't reveal this.

And, uh -- And Randy
certainly had his --

his share of all this.

So, the idea that gay men
were going out

and intentionally giving
the disease, it wasn't that.

It was that sex was
one of the few joys

that people had in life.

And so, the idea --

and it was very widespread --

that, "Whatever's causing this,

I already have, and you probably
have it, too" --

this is the main reason
why a lot of gay men

didn't adopt and embrace
safe sex practices

when it came out

because everyone believed
it was already too late.

It wasn't this dark,
evil portrait

that -- that Randy came up with.

Murray: There was one part
in the book

where he was at a steam bath
with someone...

and at the end
of their sexual act, he said,

"I've got gay cancer,

and now you're going to
get it, too."

And...that struck me

as very unlike
the Gaétan that I knew.

[Sighs]

♪♪

That Gaétan really knew
he was, uh...

spreading something --

Uh...

♪♪

I can tell you one thing.

If Gaétan knew...

he -- he, uh --

that he was killing somebody

by having sex with them,
he wouldn't --

eh, h-he -- he would not
have done it.

Uh, h-he would have stopped
having sex with whoever.

If he -- if he knew exactly?

No.

That's -- that's not
the person that I know.

Gaétan was not like that.

He was charming and everything,
but very, very caring.

No way.

There's no way
he would have continued this.

I -- I didn't blame Gaétan.

Y-You know, had I become
HIV-positive, I --

I never went through a period

where I blamed Gaétan,
uh, for that,

because at that time, again,

I don't think people
really understood,

and at the time, as well,
it wasn't --

Everything wasn't lumped
into one thing.

It was -- You had
Kaposi's sarcoma,

and they were trying to figure
out why some people had that.

And you had PCP,
and some people were --

and they were trying to figure
out why some people had that.

They hadn't connected
all the dots yet --

that it was all one thing.

Um, so I didn't -- I don't think
I ever went through a period

where I blamed him.

♪♪

Watts: So, the original
cluster study --

and there's a very
famous graphic

showing everything pointing
to this one individual --

really, I think,
spoke to the general public

that there was a --
a Typhoid Mary-type syndrome,

a Patient Zero syndrome
going on.

So, here, the key issue was --

where it's sometimes called
"latency period"

or "incubation period."

It's the time from infection
to when you get sick, right?

So, if you read
the cluster study,

the assumption there
is the time from infection

to when you get sick
is of the order of two years,

So, okay. Two years.
That's some time.

So they constructed this diagram

in which Gaétan is linked

to all these people
by having had sex with them,

wi-within approximately
two years of their diagnosis.

Okay. So, Okay.
Two years. Good.

'Cause no one thought
at the time

that this was a virus
that takes, on average,

10 years to --
to produce symptoms.

When you see somebody
sick with AIDS,

what you're seeing is the result

of something that happened
10 years before.

And when you see somebody in the
mid-'80s, where we now were,

it's the result of getting
infected in the mid-'70s.

And that's true.
That's what happened.

So this was like
a slow-motion epidemic

that had taken place
in the past,

and what we were seeing
was the result of that.

So, this cluster is nonsense,

because if A infects B,

B is not gonna get sick
for ten years.

And if B gets sick
within two years of A,

then you know for sure
that A didn't infect him.

It's the opposite
of what it appears to say.

Patient Zero, Gaétan Dugas,
did not infect those people.

That's not true.
That's false.

Dugas is at the center
of a cluster of people

who are impacted by HIV.

That part of it is true.

But if you move the dial over
left or right 5° or 10°,

you're going to
find someone else

who's at the center of a cluster

that just starts over again
because of their contacts.

If every individual
had been able

to recall the information

to the same quality
that Gaétan had

and had been willing
to share it,

this image would look
completely different.

♪♪

There just so much, uh...

blaming of communities, uh,
at that point --

the gay community, of --
of -- of course --

or gay male, uh, community --

trying to find an other.

Otherness bringing it here
from otherwhere, you know?

And he was Mr. Otherwhere,
you know?

They had him picked
for that role,

and everybody leaps on it.

As soon as you put
that out in the air,

everybody wants to believe
something like that.

"Bad person brought it here
from bad country.

You."Man: [Laughs]

And, uh... [Chuckles]

That's where
religion comes from,

is a need for an explanation
that doesn't exist, um,

so we can blame God,
you know? [Laughs]

Or the devil.

Um, or in this case, um,
some poor flight attendant.

But the myth -- the Gaétan myth
separate from the science.

It's a whole separate thing,
you know.

That's not what it's about.
It's not about science.

It's about projecting ideas
of sickness and disease

and evil onto somebody,
you know?

I-It's scapegoating.
It's -- He's --

He's a classic scapegoat,
you know?

I mean, it's weird,
because nobody knows

what he's being scapegoated for.

Originally, he was the Out of
California Case, you know?

And then he's like
"the first man with AIDS"

or the man who brought it
to America, or --

Who knows what he is.

He's like the mysterious,
evil character.

He's the scapegoat.
Every society needs a scapegoat.

It's -- It's universal, right?

It's a magical way
of getting rid of evil.

You put it on the scapegoat.

Then you drive it out,
and it dies.

Takes the evil with it.

I think the -- the application

of morality to a -- a disease
is a mistake

because it interferes with
the ability to deal with it.

Um, it's a scientific
phenomenon.

It's a h--
It's a human tragedy

no matter where it is
and who gets it.

First of all, the people
who were religious --

you know, Christian
fundamentalists,

whatever they were
called then --

um, then they believe
this was a punishment from God.

They believe that.

They believe these things.

These things that they say,
they believe.

I mean, this may be,
you know, a function

of my own, uh, personality,

which is, I just don't care
what other people do.

I don't care.

You believe in all this
crazy religious stuff.

Go ahead,
but don't impose it on me.

Anal sex in particular

had been, for so long,
demonized.

Sodomy.
We have -- We have laws

which specifically demonize
anal sex.

And then, for us to have,
at great cost,

thrown off the shackles of that,

and then to see anal sex
in particular

demonized once again
as the best transmission method

for what became known as HIV --

um, these sort of realities

have a terrible impact
on self-image,

have a terrible impact
on how we --

how we navigate our sex lives,

let alone how a mass public
takes up our sex lives.

And I do believe homosexuality
is a moral perversion.

Uh, participates in every kind

of bloody and filthy, uh,
kind of sexual activity.

One of the terms I remember
used a lot was "general public."

General public was people
who were innocent

of the kinds of practices

that gay men were
"indulging" in.

One of the words
I saw a lot in the media.

One of the words
that I identify with homophobia.

Somehow, gay men
"indulge" in sex.

Other people don't
indulge in sex.

Of course, it was tragic

when a young child got HIV
from a blood supply,

but it was also tragic

when a 19-year-old man
got HIV from a sexual encounter.

♪♪

Patient Zero, uh,
was very helpful to us

in a number of ways

when he was very open
about his sexual partners,

which allowed Bill Darrow
to do the work

that led to
the cluster creation.

He also agreed
to come to Atlanta

to give a large amount
of blood,

thinking if anybody has
a new virus, he has it.

Well, for several years,
we had the conversation

between myself,
Mike Worobey --

who's a molecular
phylogeneticist

at the University
of Arizona --

saying, "Let's try
to figure out

what Patient Zero
represents."

Was he really
the first case?

How does he tie
into the early epidemic?

So Mike Worobey agreed
to do genetic sequencing

on some very early samples
that we collected.

I think it was Harold
who said, you know,

"We've got the Patient Zero
samples, as well,

and why not look at those?"

And -- And for --
for me, you know --

someone who does this
sort of evolutionary stuff --

"Patient Zero"
has never been a thing.

It's always been clear
that, um --

Ag-- As I say, he was just,
you know, one of lots of people

who were infected.

There has been an idea

that he may have
been the -- the conduit

that connected
the early epidemic --

let's say, in New York City
to -- to the West Coast.

Well, it's not his --

His is sort of a typical
New York City sequence,

and there are other sequences --

early sequences
from New York City

that are much closer
to the West Coast...

uh, from nameless individuals

that we're not talking about
or making films about.

And then, when we did a --

generated the sequence
from Patient Zero,

we put that
into the family tree,

and it just fell
randomly in the middle.

You would expect
from evolutionary theory

that if a -- if a sample
was the founder,

that it would form a base branch
to the tree.

Um, when it doesn't,

that means that
it is not the founder.

It was just an average,

mundane HIV Subtype B
from the time.

And with Patient Zero --

Gaétan Dugas in particular --

Um, you know, I-I didn't realize
until Harold Jaffe told me

that he made a special trip
s-- to -- to CDC in Atlanta, uh,

really just to, um --
uh, donate samples.

I-I find it remarkable
that this guy did this

and he's emerged
into our consciousness

as something special,
in large part

because he helped
epidemiologists

who were trying to figure out
what was going on.

Very unfortunate,

because people
interpreted that zero

to be the starting point
of the epidemic.

And this person
who had nothing to do

with starting this epidemic
was accused of being the source,

which was never our intent,
never meant to be.

I think the -- the --
the crucial contribution

Gaétan Dugas made
was his very active cooperation

in a moment
of extreme fear when --

He's French Canadian.
He could have been deported.

But he's going to Atlanta
when he's very ill.

He's going to San Francisco
to meet with this --

the researchers.

Gaétan Dugas m--
really was crucial

to us understanding
that AIDS was

a sexually transmitted disease,
and therefore,

he should be acclaimed
as a hero of the epidemic,

of the fight against AIDS.

♪♪

Lee: The toll of AIDS is
demonstrated on that memorial.

Those people who died of AIDS

were the guinea pigs

who made our lives a lot better.

People have to remember
that this community went

and supported all those folks.

And this memorial is there
to -- to just make sure

that they're immortalized.

♪♪

Curran: When those first
five cases were reported,

there were already 250,000
gay men infected with HIV,

and by the time
the virus was discovered

and an antibody test
was commercially available,

there were perhaps
500,000 gay men infected

in the United States,
and the vast majority

of those men have died.

There's more than one aspect.
There is the personal aspect

of actual human beings who died,

um, and then,
there is this culture

that disappeared
in five seconds.

All the plays never written,
the performances never sung.

The books never written.

Even the audiences
that never filled the seats.

All the people we lost --

all of the older people

who could have been
mentors to me

to show me how to get older
as a gay man, that I don't have.

The gay men that
I personally, uh, lost

and many of the gay men

that I worked with
at the airline

were bright, kind,

fun, nice people.

They wanted the same things
out of life

that all the rest of us want.

They wanted to have
a relationship,

to be loved --

to grow old together,
m-many of them --

and they contributed
to our society in many ways.

And it is absolutely devastating

that we lost so many.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

I have this belief, uh,
or theory --

not that there's a big
difference between those two --

that AIDS is what
caused gay marriage.

You know, that all these
astonishing changes

in society's, um, idea
o-of -- of being gay,

I don't think that would have
happened without AIDS.

If you can stay in Atlanta

and buy a house in the suburbs

and marry your boyfriend

and be a dentist, they do.

So, [Laughs] you know,
it turns out

that the average homosexual

turned out to be
more average than homosexual.

This is a surprising
thing to me.

It's something that has not been
universally welcomed

by gay communities.

I know that I do.

I'm happy about it.

Um, I won't call her my wife,

but I'm happy to have
a legal piece of paper.

There's nothing more important

than having someone
in your life, you know,

to be your witness,
to be your partner,

to be there
when you need something.

I always had so many friends,

I never saw marriage
as something necessary.

But the older I get,
the fewer friends there are.

And so, now I understand
on a deep, personal level

what it means to have someone
who's been a witness

to your life's journey
to be there with you to the end.

And suddenly, here we are now
with gay marriage

and gays in the military,

where they've been
excluded before.

All of that happened --

"And the Band Played On"
played an important part

in that recognition

that there was a large number
of gay men in America.

But the AIDS epidemic
was really the thing

that focused us on the fact

that there were large numbers
of gay men --

that your uncle,
the --the bachelor,

your -- your brother,
your son --

maybe even your dad --
was gay.

It took 800,000 gay men to die

for the American public
to realize

that homosexuals were
a large part of this community.

That was really the legacy
of the AIDS epidemic.

♪♪

You know, now's the time to say
what the impact was

on -- on his family
and, um --

and for his memory
to be, uh, you know --

uh, w-washed clean

of this, you know, horror
that was, uh --

um, you know,
put upon them, really,

I went to see him in Quebec City
at the hospital,

and he didn't know I was coming
because I couldn't say

if -- if I was able
to get on a flight or not.

So I showed up there,
and, um, he said to me...

[Gasps]
Gaétane! Gaétan!

[Speaking French]

Then he was very self-conscious
of what he looked like,

because he had those, um, see--

the -- the -- the purple, eh,
spot on him from, um --

Man: KS?
Ye-- KS.

And, eh, so, he's going --
covering his head.

And I said, no, no, no.
[Speaking French]

So then, he said to me, ehm,
"But you know what?

I will get a Dalmatian dog,

and I'll take him
running on the beach

so we'll look the same,
like we're twins."

S-- You know, he made humor.

Like, he wasn't...

Yeah, he was, uh --

That's how I knew him, so...

I dec-- Okay, I decided
to do this...

for Gaétan.

Like, I just felt,

Well, this is my chance
to really, eh, show him

how much I loved him, you know?

By coming forward and say,
"No, this is not true.

No, this is not true."

Uh, this photo --

this photo, I think,
is probably the nicest one

because he looks very sweet,

and he's just sitting there
being sweet.

This one was probably
the most famous one.

He's kind of...

in the air.

He's flying,

He's having a good time.

He looks angelic.

He's like this golden boy,
you know?

Um, in the air.
[Laughs]

And this is the one where he was
trying to show his dick.

He doesn't manage to get
his dick in the picture.

Uh, this picture
I didn't send to "Life" magazine

because another friend

who has great gallows
humor sense said,

"Don't send that one to 'Life.'

They probably don't want to see
the murder weapon."

So they didn't get this one.

You have it, somehow.

That is all of them, actually.

♪♪

Eh, it's saying...

[Speaking French]

"I'm saying goodbye."

"I love you,
and I'm waiting for you...

in heaven," basically.

And "Gaétan."

Of course, the airplane.

Eh, our job, and...

Ah.

♪♪

It says, um --
Well, the last part is,

"W-We'll, um" --

[Weeping]

"We'll see you in heav" --

"We'll see you in heaven."

Pfoof.

I can't remember
the first part.

That's age.
[Laughs]

The first part --

"I'm s-- I'm saying
goodbye to you.

I love you...

and I'm waiting for you
in heaven."

♪♪

That's beautiful.

And I'll see him there.

I'm already talking to him.

[Laughs]

[Chuckles]

I don't know what the legacy
of the photos is.

Hopefully, they l-- portray him
in a positive light,

because, uh, he's not so--

sort of a -- a negative
in a sad story.

He wasn't negative
or a sad person.

Like, he was very happy
and, you know, funny.

And, um --

Uh, so I think
the photos represent him

kind of nicely, if you will.

Like, he -- he looks like
an attractive young guy

who's enjoying himself,
and that's who he was.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Ooh-ooh ♪

♪♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪♪

♪ Ooh-ooh ♪

♪♪

♪ Oooooooh-ooh ♪

♪ Ooooooooooooh-ooh ♪

♪ Ooooooh-ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Warbling]