Patient Zero in HIV crisis Was Misidentified, Study Says

Newly published research is rewriting the earliest chapter of the historical account of how the AIDS epidemic began in the United States.

The work, detailed in a study released Wednesday, discounts the long-held notion that a French-Canadian flight attendant, whose story was highlighted in the seminal book “And the Band Played On,” brought the virus to the United States.

“This individual was simply one of thousands infected before HIV/AIDS was recognized,” said Richard McKay, one of the authors and a professor in the department of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge, in Britain.