Why we care about finding patient zero

[marmar]

Why we care about finding patient zero
The co-author of "Patient Zero" on what history's most famous cases can tell us about surviving an outbreak

By MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
PUBLISHED JANUARY 23, 2022 7:30PM


"It's a natural instinct to want to find the causes and sources of problems," says Dr. Lydia Kang. As a practicing physician, Kang understands the value of investigating the origins of illnesses. And as the co-author, with historian Nate Pedersen, of "Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases," she also recognizes how quickly our curiosity can turn into something far less benevolent.

There's no more telling contemporary example of collaboration and polarization than the intense, often accusatory response to our current pandemic. In the early days in 2020, coronavirus contagion anxiety and the frantic search for the "ground zero of a new virus," was quickly weaponized into a rash of anti-Asian hate crimes and racist rhetoric like Trump's references to "kung flu." Now, Reddit's sardonic "Herman Cain Award" sub identifies vaccine skeptics and mask mandate defiers who've succumbed to COVID-19 infections. It's named in honor of the former Republican presidential candidate and face mask refuser, who died a month after attending Trump's infamous 2020 Tulsa rally. As body counts rise, we seek solutions. We also want names. We want a source. And we want a culprit.

In "Patient Zero," the authors — whose previous collaboration "Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything" similarly explored the double edge of good intentions — look at the stages of infection, viral spread and eventual containment through the lens of some of humanity's most baffling and bedeviling outbreaks. It's a rich and thought-provoking book, filled with historical photographs, artwork, and unique accounts of patients and researchers grappling for answers in the midst of the most appalling and heartbreaking circumstances imaginable. It's also a profound reconsideration of our common understanding of our most famous stories of sickness and science. What's the truth about those notorious "smallpox blankets" European colonizers brought with them to the Americas? Were "Typhoid" Mary Mallon and early HIV patient Gaëtan Dugas really as reckless as their infamy suggests? What are the lessons from how rabies, polio, mad cow disease and the 1918 influenza outbreak were managed that inform our current response to COVID? And when does "a beacon of hope come in the form of poop"?

....(snip)....

There is an understandable scientific imperative to trace the origins of viruses and diseases, but in the wider world, that can become a shorthand path to blaming individuals. What have we gotten wrong about "Typhoid Mary," about Gaëtan Dugas, and about the idea of "Patient Zero" in general?

Whenever we get a cold, we tend to point a finger at a colleague or friend who was sneezing nearby. Something we realized early on was how this book could be construed as a finger-pointing exercise, but we knew it would be far more complex and less blameworthy. If anything, these stories show how layered the issues are, and how we, as an entire species, are responsible for so many new pathogens in this world.

And often, the Patient Zeroes are complicated individuals. Gaëtan Dugas was a multifaceted human being, faulty at times, but generous as well. That is not well construed when many people think of him as the Patient Zero of the HIV and AIDS crisis of the 1980s, which he most certainly is not. ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/01/23/why-we-care-about-finding-patient-zero/

[niyad]

1. KNR. Will look for this.