"Mag Tries to Cash in on AIDS Story"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1988. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

"Mag Tries to Cash in on AIDS Story"

Bay Area Reporter (09/15/88) Vol. 18, No. 37, P. 5
White, Allen

Abstract: A spokeswoman for Hal Riner, a major California ad agency, said the agency received over 75 phone calls to protest an advertisement for California Magazine that said, "The AIDS Epidemic was not spread in America by a virus. It was spread by a single man." The ad--run in the AUg. 23 New York Times and in Ad Week--promoted an excerpt from "And the Band Played On," by Randy Shilts, dealing with Gaetan Dugas, the Canadian flight attendant known as "Patient Zero." "While everyone was searching for a cure for AIDS, we found the cAUse," the ad boasts. It also credits Dugas with infecting "up to 250 men a year." Shilts called the idea that one man caused the epidemic "absurd." A recent New York Review of Books article on Shilts' book says that epidemiologists now doubt that there ever was a Patient Zero. In 1984, California Magazine created an uproar with an article claiming that San Francisco's government and its gay community covered up the AIDS crisis. The spokeswoman said the ad has been withdrawn.
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