Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 16 - A False Villain, a Genuine Hero

  • Jacques Pépin, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
  • Book:
    The Origins of AIDS
    Published online:
    05 January 2021
    Print publication:
    21 January 2021, pp 320-331

  • Summary

    Chapter 16 explores the fate of two individuals who left their mark on the history of AIDS, but for very different reasons. Gaétan Dugas, a French Canadian airline steward, was falsely accused of being the man who brought the virus to the USA and of having deliberately infected dozens of other gay men in some kind of morbid vengeance. This ‘false villain’ was eventually exonerated by evolutionary biologists who succeeded in characterising Dugas’ own virus. The life of Jonathan Mann, a visionary humanist who founded the World Health Organization’s special programme on AIDS, illustrates the beginning of the international battle against HIV/AIDS in the late 1980s. A parallel is drawn between Mann and Rieux, the main character in Albert Camus’ novel The Plague.