Killing Patient Zero

This was an excellent documentary that delved into the real Gaëtan Dugas, a man who was vilified as the monster who brought AIDS to North America. The truth is that Gaëtan was just a regular fella from Canada, with a family, great friends, a career, and a fulfilling life that was cut far too short when he succumbed to AIDS at only thirty-one. Gaëtan was instrumental in providing much needed data to the CDC when they were at the beginning of the AIDS crisis and desperate to find out what was killing so many gay men so rapidly. He was not Patient 0, the foundation of the disease, but was Patient O, the O standing for Out of California. Someone misreads a document and changes a man into a number. Randy Shilts, who wrote the phenomenal book And the Band Played On, didn't help matters when he painted Gaëtan as a man who knew he was sick but continued to knowingly infect other men with not a single care. It's a shame that it took this long for a documentary to set the record straight on the true character of Gaëtan Dugas.