Patient Zero

Turns out the tale of Patient Zero – the Canadian flight attendant – was, as with many things, a lie.  Story here.

Reading this story reminds me of my Dad and my family, believe it or not.  Chances are our family knew about AIDS long before most of you did.

As I have related before, my Dad was an immunologist before he became a bio-ethicist. When I was a kid, I remember him coming home to tell us about a frightening virus that didn’t really have a name yet. Some of the doctors at the hospital, he said, were scared by the profound toll it was taking on three “H” communities – Haitians, homosexuals and heroin users. I remember him saying it was the most formidable virus any of them had ever seen. “If it does what we think it is going to do,” he said, “it will kill millions of people.”

It did. Every year, now, it kills about two million people. Many more live with it.  And my Dad mourned the loss of every single one of those patients he had, as he and others struggled to stop the spread of this terrible disease.

As the Star story suggests, it is wrong to associate complex problems with simple causes.  But that’s what the media demand, and so we go along with it.

We shouldn’t.  In any event, a fascinating story, and worth a read.