Killing Patient Zero

"Killing Patient Zero" (2019) tells the story of Gaétan Dugas, a French-Canadian flight attendant who unwittingly became the face of the early HIV/AIDS epidemic in North America. Through archive footage and interviews with experts, including Fran Lebowitz, Randy Shilts, Richard Berkowitz, Ronald Reagan (in archive footage), and others, the film explores how Dugas's role was distorted to illustrate contact tracing in a book that contributed to his vilification as "Patient Zero". The documentary aims to set the record straight about this pivotal figure in the history of the disease.