0:01

This episode is brought to you by the Weather

0:03

Channel app. Did you know the

0:06

app can help you forecast more than just

0:08

the weather? With allergy tracking and fluence mapping.

0:10

So you know when to stay inside and

0:12

load up on podcast. As well as air

0:15

quality and UV indexing. So you know when

0:17

to get outside, load up on sunscreen and

0:19

podcast. Ask more of what you

0:21

love with the Weather Channel app. On

0:31

September 26, 1991, Capitol Hill was on edge. There

0:36

was a big congressional hearing that morning, and

0:38

nobody was sure if the star witness was

0:40

going to make it. It

0:48

was around 9 a.m. when her wheelchair rolled

0:50

into the hearing room. She

0:52

was immediately swarmed by photographers. The

1:00

woman everyone had come to see was

1:02

Kimberly Bragales. Millions of

1:04

Americans had heard her story. Now

1:07

it was obvious that she didn't have much time

1:09

left. She was 23 years

1:11

old and weighed just 70 pounds. Her

1:15

hair was short and wispy, and she

1:17

wore a blazer decorated with pale flowers.

1:21

As the cameras closed in, her eyes stayed

1:23

pointed at the floor. Someone

1:30

kneeled down and clipped a microphone to

1:32

Kimberly's lapel, a few inches from the

1:34

crucifix that dangled from her neck. Then

1:38

the chairman of this House subcommittee,

1:40

California's Henry Waxman, made some very

1:42

brief opening remarks. Normally at

1:44

a hearing such as this, the members of

1:46

the committee would do a lot of talking.

1:50

I think today we ought to be here

1:52

to listen to the witnesses. Mr.

1:54

Bragales. The

1:58

room fell silent, except for the clicking

2:00

camera shutters. Kimberly

2:02

could barely speak, but she

2:04

mustered the strength to make one last

2:06

public statement. I'd

2:08

like to say that AIDS is a terrible

2:11

disease and she must take seriously. I

2:14

did nothing wrong, yet I'm being made to

2:16

suffer like this. My life has been

2:18

taken away. Please

2:20

enact legislation to let no other

2:23

patient or health care provider go

2:26

through the hell that I have. Thank

2:28

you. By

2:32

the end of 1990, AIDS had killed more than 100,000 Americans. Most

2:37

of those victims were gay and bisexual

2:39

men. But in many ways,

2:42

the face of the epidemic was

2:44

Kimberly Bragales. Kimberly

2:46

had been on the cover of People magazine

2:48

and featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a

2:51

young, attractive, straight woman devastated

2:53

by a cruel disease. But

2:56

the press and the public didn't just

2:58

find Kimberly fascinating because of who she

3:00

was. They were also

3:02

captivated and terrified by how she'd

3:04

gotten AIDS. Her

3:07

account of it was scandalous and strange,

3:09

almost unbelievable. She

3:11

said that she'd been infected by her

3:13

dentist. That

3:16

claim would grab America's attention and

3:19

create a monumental controversy. The

3:24

man who Kimberly Bragales believed had infected

3:27

her would be made into a villain

3:29

without America ever knowing who he really

3:31

was. And even

3:33

now, more than 30 years later,

3:35

Kimberly's own story remains incredibly thorny.

3:38

It's about facts and fiction, life and

3:41

death, and how we decide

3:43

who's guilty and who's innocent. This

3:45

dying girl decided to take on the nation.

3:48

If she were a person of colour, a gay

3:50

man, I don't think the public

3:52

would have been as accepting of her as

3:54

a hero. There's really no us

3:56

or them in this. There

3:59

is... was

6:00

definitely wrong. By

6:03

Christmas, Kimberly had gotten too weak to manage

6:05

on her own. She moved

6:07

back home to Florida's Atlantic coast. Her

6:10

parents often had to carry her around the house.

6:14

Doctors checked her out for everything. Diabetes,

6:17

hepatitis, leukemia. Her

6:20

mother, a public health nurse, thought it might

6:22

be something else. She said

6:24

to me and to my father that a lot of

6:26

these symptoms are symptoms of AIDS. She sees it up

6:28

at the clinic. Her first

6:30

HIV test wasn't conclusive. The

6:33

second came back positive. I

6:35

was in shock, deep

6:38

shock. I couldn't believe

6:40

that this had happened. Kimberly

6:43

was 21 years old at a

6:46

time when HIV was basically a death

6:48

sentence. And she had no

6:50

idea how she'd gotten infected. You

6:52

just go insane

6:54

with bots trying to figure out how did this happen. The

6:57

first thing that struck me was really

6:59

how young she was. Dr.

7:02

Carol Siselsky worked at the Centers

7:04

for Disease Control in the AIDS

7:06

Surveillance Branch. Which is like the

7:08

CDC detective. So yeah, I did feel like

7:10

a medical detective. State health

7:13

departments asked for Carol's help when they couldn't

7:15

figure out how someone got HIV. In

7:18

March 1990, she went to Florida to pitch

7:20

in on the Kimberly-Brigalis case. That

7:23

included interviewing Kimberly in person. She

7:25

was very interested in talking to us to

7:28

try to figure things out. HIV,

7:30

the virus that causes AIDS, gets

7:32

passed from person to person through

7:34

blood and other bodily fluids, including

7:36

semen. A few of the most

7:38

common risk factors didn't apply to

7:41

Kimberly. She wasn't an intravenous

7:43

drug user and she'd never gotten a blood

7:45

transfusion. As for sexual

7:47

transmission, that was more of an open

7:49

question. Kimberly said that

7:51

she'd had some sexual contact, but

7:54

never intercourse. Carol pressed

7:56

her to describe exactly what she'd done.

7:59

Kimberly said later that the questioning was pretty

8:01

rough. When you were on a date

8:03

with so-and-so, you tell us what really happened on that

8:05

date and, you know, where

8:08

was his hand and where was your mouth?

8:10

I just felt sorry for her because, you

8:12

know, it was so uncomfortable. You know,

8:14

I'm from the government. We're here to

8:16

talk about your sex life. But,

8:18

I mean, they were very necessary questions, obviously.

8:21

Carol could tell that Kimberly was embarrassed,

8:24

but she answered the questions and gave

8:26

the names of two boyfriends. When

8:28

the CDC tracked them down, both

8:30

tested negative for HIV. That

8:33

meant sexual transmission was looking unlikely,

8:36

but Carol had one more avenue left to

8:38

explore. And then we talked about, you know,

8:41

her medical history, and then we got to

8:43

the point of her dental extractions. In

8:46

December 1987, when Kimberly was 19 years old, she

8:50

went to a dentist in Jensen Beach, Florida

8:52

to get her bottom molars pulled. We

8:55

talked about the procedure and she said that

8:58

she remembered he wore gloves and a mask and

9:00

she was awake the whole time and, you

9:03

know, it was sort of uneventful. But

9:05

then she said, but, you know, I've heard there's some

9:07

rumors that he might

9:09

have AIDS. It's only a rumor,

9:11

but I thought that's the only person that

9:14

I was exposed to that has AIDS. And,

9:16

you know, that seemed

9:19

like the only possibility. Even

9:21

if those rumors were true, it

9:23

seemed like the longest of long shots

9:25

that he'd given Kimberly HIV. There

9:28

had never been a case of transmission

9:30

from an infected healthcare worker to

9:32

a patient. Carol was

9:34

skeptical, but she couldn't rule

9:36

out the dentist theory until she'd done

9:38

more investigating. That meant dropping

9:40

in on the dentist. His

9:42

name was David Acker. He

9:45

was 40 years old and he lived in a

9:47

brick and stucco home with a fenced-in backyard and

9:49

a fishing boat in the garage. It

9:51

was at his house. You know, he

9:53

didn't really know what we were coming there for. Carol

9:56

noticed right away that he was sick. I

9:59

just remember him. Like sitting back sort of I

10:01

think was on a lounge chair and like

10:03

would be was very thin. He and his

10:05

color. Wasn't very good. The.

10:08

Rumors were true. David. Actor

10:10

did have Aids. She told Carol

10:12

that he'd gotten tested outside of

10:14

town to avoid the stigma that

10:16

came with being Hiv positive. He

10:18

said that he was bisexual and

10:20

believed he'd been infected by a

10:22

sex partner. He took out Timberly

10:24

Brick Alice's molders three months after

10:26

his initial diagnosis. Doctor.

10:28

After had no legal obligation to

10:30

reveal his Hiv status to his

10:32

patients, but he said he always

10:34

took precautions, including wearing gloves at

10:36

a time when the Cdc didn't

10:38

officially recommend them for dentists. She.

10:41

Shut down as practice in the summer of

10:43

Nineteen Eighty Nine when he became too sick

10:45

to work. When. Patients asked about

10:47

doctor after they were told he had

10:49

cancer. Now. In Nineteen

10:52

Ninety, Carol explained why she'd come to

10:54

see him. We're. Here because

10:56

we're beginning and investigation as

10:58

a case of days in

11:00

a former patient of yours

11:02

who. In at this point we don't

11:05

know how she got it and he does.

11:07

He seemed really. Shocked and

11:09

blown away. For. Confidentiality

11:11

Reasons: Carol couldn't tell him which

11:13

former patients he was talking about.

11:16

But. She remembers Doctor Anchor been very

11:18

compassionate and concerned about that person's

11:21

while being. At. The same

11:23

time, he didn't think it was possible that

11:25

he could have transmitted Hiv to anyone who

11:27

sat in his dental chair. Like

11:29

assess what I say. well if there's one way

11:31

to know for sure, if we can have a

11:33

sample of your blood and and tested. Doctor.

11:36

After didn't hesitate. He. Told

11:38

Carol to go ahead. We. Sat

11:40

it has kitchen table and I do with

11:42

blood and and we went back to the

11:45

health department checked his up and send it

11:47

off to Atlanta. The

11:49

Cdc had collected Kimberly's blood to

11:51

and sent off both samples for

11:53

genetic testing. This. Was a totally

11:55

new concept. No. one had ever

11:57

done dna analysis to figure out of

12:00

one One person had transmitted HIV to

12:02

another. Scientists

12:04

in Georgia, New Mexico, and Scotland took

12:06

up that challenge. And when their

12:08

tests were done, they all reached the same

12:10

conclusion. These two strains

12:12

of HIV were a very close match.

12:16

They were very similar, I think

12:18

like 96% identical between the dentist

12:20

and the patient. Terrell

12:23

and the rest of the CDC now

12:26

believed it was likely that Kimberly Bergalis

12:28

had been infected by David Acker. That

12:31

meant they were looking at the first

12:33

documented case of a healthcare worker transmitting

12:35

HIV to a patient. And

12:37

the implications were enormous. If

12:40

there was even a slim chance to

12:42

get HIV during an ordinary dental procedure,

12:44

that message would scare a lot of

12:47

people. The fear of AIDS

12:49

was already off the charts. So

12:51

before the scientists said anything publicly,

12:54

they thought hard about how confident they really

12:56

were. It was a

12:58

big decision because if it turns

13:00

out it wasn't true, we would

13:02

be accused of fueling all the

13:04

hysteria that resulted. After

13:07

weeks of debate, the CDC made its

13:09

final decision in July 1990. They

13:12

were going to publish an article telling the world

13:14

what they knew about the dentist and his patient,

13:16

but with a note of caution. They

13:19

said that the possibility of another

13:21

source of infection cannot be entirely

13:23

excluded. I remember I

13:25

was sitting in that office when they pushed

13:27

a little button that says send and I

13:30

was like, okay, here we go. Reporting

13:33

from NBC News headquarters in New York

13:36

is Jane Paulin. Good

13:38

evening. On July 26, Kimberly

13:40

Bergalis was with her parents watching

13:42

the evening news. Through sex, drug

13:45

use, transfusions of tainted blood, these

13:47

are the ways we have understood

13:49

the AIDS virus is transmitted. But

13:52

today it was disclosed that for the

13:54

first time, a patient was infected with

13:56

the AIDS virus by her dentist. Lead

14:00

with a note of caution. They

14:02

were saying definitively that a patient

14:04

was infected by her dentist. And.

14:06

More, the Cdc hadn't identified her by

14:08

name. It took Kimberly just a few

14:10

seconds to figure out that she was

14:13

that patients. So. It came out

14:15

without her being told. There. Was

14:17

horrible. it seems. cold hearted.

14:21

The. Cdc had struggled over whether to

14:23

give Kimberly a heads up, but ultimately

14:25

they decided that they couldn't. Because.

14:27

They had an obligation to protect

14:29

David actors confidentiality. Kimberly

14:31

and her family felt outraged that they've been

14:34

kept in the dark. Here when I'd

14:36

asked about the dentist as how are you settling

14:38

into the center semis and I thought they probably

14:40

did looking in the dentist that that arts and

14:42

passive on and just dropped it. Little

14:45

that I know. That.

14:47

Nbc Nightly News was just the start.

14:49

In the months that followed, there were

14:52

stories about the dentist and his patient.

14:54

everywhere. There is mounting concern that a

14:56

trip to the dentist could be hazardous

14:59

to your health. There are five thousand

15:01

health care workers or Hiv carriers. In

15:03

my opinion. they're all loaded. Got. The

15:08

American Medical Association in the American

15:10

Dental Association pushed back at his

15:12

alarm his claim they said the

15:14

Cdc his report was sketchy and

15:16

premature and causing unnecessary anxiety. My

15:18

fear is that we're going to

15:20

end up having a sense that

15:22

are going to be a spherical

15:25

about go into the debt up.

15:27

There were still so many unanswered

15:29

questions. This is really happened. How

15:31

could it have happened and who

15:33

else might be in danger. After

15:36

the Cdc released it's report. Florida.

15:39

Health officials pleaded with David Acker to go

15:41

public so the people he treated with know

15:43

they might be a risk. On.

15:46

August Thirty first, Ninety Ninety. The same

15:48

day he was transferred to hospice care,

15:50

the dentist signed his name to a

15:52

letter. It. Began to my

15:54

former patients. I am d

15:56

The Jasper. And I have Aids.

16:00

The announcement was printed by the Stuart Daily

16:02

News. I have AIDS and

16:04

for your peace of mind, I suggest you

16:06

contact the local health department for free testing.

16:09

David Acker did more than just urge his patients

16:12

to get tested. He also

16:14

defended his own character. The

16:16

letter said, I am a gentle man

16:19

and I would have never intentionally exposed

16:21

anyone to this disease. I

16:23

have cared for people all my life and

16:26

to infect anyone with this disease would

16:28

be contrary to everything I have stood

16:30

for. Those

16:32

words would be his obituary. Last

16:35

night there was an announcement by Dr. Acker's

16:37

lawyer. Monday, Dr. Acker

16:40

passed away. David

16:44

Acker died of AIDS on September 3rd, 1990,

16:47

just three days after he'd signed that letter.

16:50

While the public now knew the dentist's

16:52

name, the patient's identity was still a

16:54

mystery. But it wouldn't be for

16:56

long. Today, after months in

16:59

seclusion, 22-year-old Kimberly Bergalis came forward

17:01

and said she was the patient

17:03

government scientists believe was infected with

17:05

the AIDS virus. We'll

17:10

be back in a minute. Hey

17:22

everybody, it's Tim Heidecker. You know me,

17:24

Tim and Eric, bridesmaids, and Fantastic Four.

17:27

I'd like to personally invite you to listen to

17:29

Office Hours Live with me and my co-hosts DJ

17:31

Doug Pound and Vic Berger.

17:34

Every week we bring you laughs, fun, games,

17:36

and lots of other surprises. It's live. We

17:38

take your Zoom calls. We love having fun.

17:41

Excuse me? That song.

17:43

Vic said something. Music. I

17:45

like having fun. I like to laugh. I

17:47

like to be people who can make me.

17:49

Please subscribe now. Hey, this is Mary Harris.

17:51

I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm

17:54

a doctor. I'm a doctor. This is Mary Harris,

17:57

host of Slate's daily news podcast, What

17:59

Next. Slate's mission has always

18:01

been to cut through the noise, boldly

18:04

and provocatively. This election

18:06

season and Supreme Court term are no

18:08

different. Important coverage like this,

18:10

though, it would not be possible without the

18:12

support of our Slate Plus members. So,

18:15

I'm going to invite you to join

18:17

us for the special offer. You

18:19

can try your first three months for only 15 weeks.

18:22

That is $5 a month for

18:24

your first three months of uninterrupted

18:26

ad-free listening on every Slate podcast.

18:29

Remember exclusive episodes and segments

18:31

of your favorite shows like Amicus and the

18:33

Political Popfest. And unlimited reading

18:36

on the Slate Plus. First

18:38

of all, you'll be supporting all of Slate's

18:40

independent journalism and analysis as you make sense

18:42

of the news like no one else can. Sign

18:45

up for Slate Plus at slate.com slash

18:47

podcast plus. Again, that

18:49

is three months for only 15 weeks. So

18:53

sign up now at slate.com/podcast plus.

19:02

Before anyone else could tell her

19:04

story, Kimberly Bregalis wanted to tell

19:06

it herself. This isn't something you

19:08

can just sit back and

19:10

die from it and not let anyone know how this happened

19:12

to you. The first patient

19:14

believed to have gotten AIDS from a health

19:17

care professional went before the public today, more

19:19

than a month after investigators reported the case

19:21

involving her dentist. On September

19:23

7th, 1990, Kimberly

19:26

stood up at a news conference and said that

19:28

she was the one the CDC had been talking

19:30

about. What we've gone through

19:32

is an injustice. She said

19:34

that she'd been totally healthy before the

19:36

dentist David Acker took out her molars.

19:39

Now she was gravely ill, overcome

19:41

with a nearly constant fever and

19:44

crippling fatigue. But Kimberly told

19:46

the media that she was on a mission. She

19:49

wanted to make sure no one else would suffer

19:51

like she had. I think if

19:53

I can prevent this from happening to another family, then

19:55

I think that's what needs to be done. In

19:58

that room, packed full of reports, her parents

20:00

were far less measured. Today, Kimberly's

20:02

mother described her family's

20:04

ordeal. Hell. Hell.

20:06

Absolutely hell. If there's a hell

20:09

on Earth, we're here now. It

20:11

could have been prevented. It's the

20:13

bottom line. It could have been prevented. Didn't have to

20:15

happen. George Bragales

20:17

said that his daughter's only shortcoming was

20:20

her faith in the health care agencies. They failed, and she

20:22

paid the price. Now

20:25

the Bragales family is still in

20:27

the hospital. The dentist accused of transmitting

20:29

AIDS to Kimberly Bragales says Dr. David Acker. Bragales

20:34

is suing his estate and his insurance company

20:36

for unspecified damages. Before

20:38

she came forward in early September 1990, no

20:41

one had any idea who Kimberly

20:43

Bragales was. Now, in an instant, it seemed

20:45

like everyone in the country knew her name.

20:49

I guess you've been seeing me in the newspapers and on

20:51

TV, and

20:53

I'm not sure what you're talking about. You've

20:55

been seeing me in the newspapers and on TV. I

20:58

have a disease called AIDS. She has forged

21:00

ahead with press conferences, numerous

21:03

interviews and magazine articles, all

21:06

to force change. Kimberly appeared

21:08

on CBS this morning and The Today Show,

21:10

and she was on the cover of People

21:12

magazine. A photo that ran

21:14

across two full pages inside showed

21:17

her frail body curled beneath a blanket. A

21:20

few months later, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, she

21:22

talked about the emotional toll of her diagnosis. I'm

21:24

angry, I think. I shouldn't

21:27

be here. I should be out dating with

21:29

my friends, and I have a lot of

21:31

anger. This shouldn't have happened. That

21:34

story in People magazine said that all who know

21:36

her agree that Kimberly is the last person they

21:40

would have thought might get AIDS. Her

21:42

father, George, put it more bluntly. He

21:45

said that his daughter's sickness would have been

21:47

easier to accept if she'd been a slut

21:49

or a drug user. despite

22:00

her Catholic upbringing, her decisions around

22:02

sex weren't a religious thing. It's

22:05

just that I never really met the

22:08

right person. You know,

22:10

I dated a lot of people, but it was never, it never

22:13

clicked. Not everyone took her word for

22:15

it. On CBS's 48 Hours,

22:17

correspondent Erin Moriarty gave voice to

22:20

some of that skepticism. You

22:22

can understand, I mean, it's hard

22:24

for some people to believe that somebody is 22

22:27

years of age, a young girl, Miss Day and

22:29

Age, is a virgin who never had any kind

22:31

of sexual experience. Well, it's not

22:33

as if I wasn't dating,

22:36

but I just never had

22:38

sexual intercourse. All sorts

22:40

of journalists were pushing her, asking for

22:42

answers about what exactly she'd done with

22:44

her boyfriends. I don't think

22:46

anyone believed at the time that she was a

22:49

virgin. That's Michael Cheek.

22:51

In 1990, he was a young reporter at the

22:53

Stewart News in Florida. He was

22:55

assigned to Kimberly's story from the very first

22:57

press conference. My job

22:59

was to get her to share with

23:02

me the details of her life

23:04

in a way so that I could poke

23:06

holes in it. Michael was

23:08

just out of college, close to the same

23:10

age as Kimberly, but in his newsroom, he'd

23:13

already earned a reputation for getting people to

23:15

talk. I requested to have

23:17

an interview with her. It

23:19

turned out that she needed to go

23:21

to Miami where

23:24

she was having treatment. I

23:27

volunteered to drive her. What do

23:29

you remember about that drive? We

23:31

had a formal interview at the beginning and we had

23:33

a formal interview at the end, but

23:36

most of the drive was more about

23:38

just talking and getting to know each

23:40

other. We talked about

23:42

her life in college. We talked about what

23:44

happened when she got sick. I

23:49

told her very early on I was gay. She

23:52

acknowledged her father was

23:54

very homophobic. She would actually say, I'm not

23:56

like my dad. Michael

24:00

also asked Kimberly about her sex life, and

24:02

by the time the car ride was over, his

24:05

skepticism had melted away. And

24:08

I found her absolutely genuine.

24:12

I believe her. I

24:14

don't think she got it from

24:16

any other person other than the

24:18

dentist. That

24:20

was Michael's journalistic hunch. But

24:23

the American Medical Association and the

24:25

American Dental Association were still skeptical

24:27

of the dentist theory. Regardless

24:30

of Kimberly's sexual history, they thought

24:32

the scientific evidence was paltry and

24:35

unproven. But it wouldn't

24:37

be long before the dentist theory started

24:39

looking stronger. Because

24:41

Kimberly Brigallis wasn't the only one of

24:43

David Acker's patients to get infected with

24:45

HIV. In

24:50

1988, Lisa Shoemaker was in

24:52

her early 30s and living in Jensen

24:54

Beach, Florida. I was unfortunately

24:57

a part of a carnival. That's

25:00

how I ended up in Florida. We

25:02

owned a cotton candy wagon and

25:04

a fried vegetable wagon. Lisa

25:07

found that carnival pretty miserable, and

25:09

she didn't like Florida much either. She

25:12

hated the weather and the bugs. And

25:14

then in the summer of 1988, it somehow got

25:16

even worse. I had two

25:18

abscess teeth, one on each side,

25:21

so I couldn't do anything. Lisa

25:24

found someone close by who called himself

25:26

the painless dentist. His name was David

25:28

Acker. It looked like a

25:31

good dental office, and it looked clean.

25:33

People were friendly. She got to

25:36

know that office very well, going about 12 times. Lisa

25:39

says that she never had much of a rapport

25:41

with Dr. Acker, but he did do her

25:43

a favor once. I loved to

25:45

be a vampire for Halloween. And

25:49

I asked him if he could make me some

25:51

teeth, you know, like vampire fangs. And

25:53

he did do that. I thought that was nice.

26:00

She started going to Dr. Acker's office. Lisa

26:02

found her boyfriend's journal and discovered he

26:04

was cheating on her with men and

26:06

women, so she decided to get

26:08

tested. They told me over the

26:10

phone, you are HIV positive. Lisa

26:14

was devastated and confused because

26:17

her boyfriend, strangely, was HIV

26:19

negative. All she could

26:21

think to do was move back to Michigan where her

26:24

parents lived and try to get the care she needed.

26:27

Two years later, in 1990, Lisa's

26:29

father told her about a news story he'd just

26:32

read. It was about a

26:34

dentist who died of AIDS and who'd possibly

26:36

infected one of his patients. And

26:38

he said, what was that dentist's name that you

26:40

saw in Florida? And I told

26:42

him what it was. The

26:45

man in the newspaper was David Acker. And

26:47

I said, I think that's it. At

26:51

this point, Lisa and her dad decided to

26:53

contact the CDC. I wanted to

26:55

know. I wanted to know exactly how it

26:57

happened. The CDC

26:59

saw Lisa's situation as very different

27:01

from Kimberly Bragales's. While

27:04

Kimberly didn't have any obvious risk

27:06

factors, Lisa did, her ex-boyfriend.

27:08

And when the CDC asked

27:10

him to get retested, this time he

27:13

was HIV positive. That

27:15

seemed like the answer Lisa had been looking for. But

27:18

when the CDC sent off a sample of her

27:20

blood for genetic testing, they got back

27:22

a surprising result. It showed

27:24

that it was from the dentist himself. It

27:27

was confirmation. Ultimately,

27:29

the CDC would find six former

27:32

patients who tested positive for HIV

27:34

and whose strain of the virus

27:36

closely matched David Acker's. That

27:38

was hard to view as a coincidence. It

27:41

was looking more and more certain that the

27:43

dentist had infected a whole group of people

27:46

who'd passed through his office, including Kimberly Bragales.

27:49

But the CDC and its leaders still couldn't

27:51

explain how. If we

27:53

look at the epidemiology and

27:56

the sequencing, together they indicate

27:58

a very high likelihood. that

28:00

this happened. There's no doubt

28:02

that this particular case is an

28:04

extremely unusual one. One

28:07

theory was that a specific piece of

28:09

equipment, a drill that Dr. Acker used

28:11

on all the patients, wasn't properly sterilized.

28:14

It was also possible that he accidentally

28:17

jabbed himself, threw his gloves, on a

28:19

needle or a patient's teeth. Maybe

28:22

that could have even happened six different

28:24

times, because he was tired, or stressed,

28:26

or suffering from a tremor or numbness

28:28

in his fingers. And

28:31

then there was a more sinister possibility.

28:34

Now some people feel that Acker intentionally

28:36

infected his patients, either by

28:38

injecting his own blood into their mouths

28:41

with anesthetic, or by using instruments on

28:43

himself and not cleaning them properly. There

28:46

wasn't any good evidence to support the idea

28:48

that David Acker had done this on purpose,

28:51

but that theory did get floated a lot.

28:54

On ABC's 2020, Barbara

28:56

Walters made it sound like Dr. Acker

28:58

was a sinister gay villain. An

29:01

avid sportsman, he had what appeared to

29:03

be a quiet and rather non-desperate lifestyle.

29:07

How a few people knew is that he

29:09

drove to the gay bars in West Palm

29:11

Beach in Fort Lauderdale, where he

29:13

could enjoy a completely different life. He

29:16

kept thinking. He

29:18

was gay, he knew he was positive, he

29:20

was a villain, and Kimberly Regalish, she was

29:23

an innocent victim, and that was the story.

29:25

So that of course made me very angry.

29:28

That's David Barr. He was the Assistant

29:30

Director of Policy at Gay Men's Health

29:32

Crisis, when the Kimberly Regalish story was

29:34

dominating the news. It

29:36

made me angry that there would be so

29:39

much media attention on how

29:41

did this person get HIV, and

29:44

much less attention paid to how

29:46

are we responding to this very

29:48

large public health crisis. That's

29:51

a bigger story to me than one

29:53

infection in Florida. David had

29:55

found out he was HIV positive in 1989, and he

29:57

saw first that

30:00

told that HIV and AIDS were taking on

30:02

gay men. The death was

30:05

constant. There was no time to really

30:07

stop and take it all in. You

30:09

had to just kind of, it was war-like. But

30:11

I think what made me most angry was just there was

30:14

virtually no response from the government.

30:18

So it was really

30:20

left to the community to sort

30:22

of handle everything. Instead

30:24

of being seen as victims in need of

30:27

support, men like the dentist David

30:29

Acker were shunned as vectors of the disease.

30:32

The press always portrayed sort of

30:34

that gay man that

30:36

we'd brought this on ourselves through

30:38

our behavior. In the

30:41

letter Dr. Acker wrote to his patients before

30:43

he died, he'd call himself a

30:45

gentle man. But those words

30:47

of self-defense were the only defense

30:49

he'd get. No one wanted to

30:51

be associated with David Acker. Michael

30:54

Cheek, the reporter for the Stewart News

30:56

in Florida, had a tough time finding

30:58

anyone who'd speak up for the dentist.

31:00

He was vilified in that community

31:03

after Kimberly came forward and the

31:05

news coverage continued about her. Michael

31:08

was one of the few out gay

31:10

men in Stewart, a small conservative city.

31:13

But after spending time with Kimberly Bregallis,

31:15

he saw the story through her

31:17

eyes, not David Acker's. And

31:19

I'm sure it creeped into my writing. He

31:22

was just this villain

31:24

that had done something to this beautiful

31:26

human being I'd met. And

31:28

I even stopped calling him Dr.

31:30

Acker or David Acker. I just

31:32

called him Acker. The

31:35

more stories Michael wrote, the simpler it all

31:37

seemed to him. But then

31:39

something happened that shifted his perspective.

31:42

It all started at a shopping mall. And

31:44

I'd gone to the bookstore and I was going to go

31:46

to the food court to grab a bite to eat. And

31:49

I bumped into someone who I knew from

31:52

a story I'd written before and

31:54

gotten to know a little bit. And he

31:56

looks at me and he says, I don't

31:58

like what you're writing. about David right

32:01

now. I

32:03

kind of had this confused look on my face,

32:05

I'm sure, and I said, David,

32:08

who's David? And

32:10

he said, David Acker. This

32:13

was someone who'd known David Acker, who

32:15

called him by his first name. And it

32:18

wasn't just that they were both

32:20

part of a community of closeted gay men

32:22

and Stewart, a group that Michael

32:24

hadn't known existed. And

32:26

that's when he told me about

32:28

the Thursday nights at a local

32:30

furniture store. There

32:33

were no gay bars anywhere near Stewart.

32:35

So that furniture store was the one

32:38

place in town where David Acker and

32:40

his friends felt safe being themselves. You

32:43

went in the back door after closing

32:45

hours. And this group

32:47

of older gay men would socialize

32:49

with each other, drink,

32:52

hang out, talk. And

32:54

I got an invitation. When

32:56

Michael showed up at the furniture store, he found

32:59

a group of six or seven people. And

33:01

they all wanted to tell him about David, just

33:04

how kind he was. All

33:06

of them went to him at his

33:08

dental practice. He

33:10

sometimes wouldn't even charge them for his

33:12

services, because some of them couldn't afford

33:14

it. But he would take care of

33:16

them because he cared for them. One

33:20

of them told me a story about his home

33:22

flooding. And David

33:24

showed up at his door with a shop

33:26

vac to help him clean up. Now

33:31

Michael was seeing the story differently through

33:33

the dentist size. He

33:35

wanted to write about this David Acker, the

33:38

pillar of his community, a man

33:40

who was loved and mourned. But

33:42

none of David's friends were willing to be

33:44

quoted and risk outing themselves. I

33:47

asked every one of them. I

33:49

went back to them multiple times. And

33:52

it was always no, they were

33:54

too fearful. Do you think it would

33:56

have made a difference in terms

33:58

of attitudes? towards David

34:01

Acker if that story had been allowed

34:04

to be published? Honestly,

34:07

no. The

34:09

world wanted to vilify

34:11

gay men with AIDS.

34:18

Let's take a quick break. Add

34:32

a little curiosity into your routine with TED

34:34

Talks Daily, the podcast that brings you a

34:36

new TED Talk every weekday. In less

34:38

than 15 minutes a day, you'll go

34:40

beyond the headlines and learn about the big

34:42

ideas shaping your future. Coming

34:44

up, how AI will change the way we communicate,

34:46

how to be a better leader, and more. Listen

34:49

to TED Talks Daily wherever you get

34:52

your podcast. It's

34:57

an antiviral medication. It

35:00

takes me a while to drink it. I don't like the taste of it. Ugh.

35:04

Yum. By January

35:06

1991, Kimberly Bregallis

35:09

had been dealing with AIDS symptoms for

35:11

more than a year. Despite the medication

35:13

she was taking, her health was clearly

35:15

declining. But she mustered the strength

35:17

to keep on telling her story. If

35:20

you have something, an infectious

35:22

disease, that you can transmit

35:24

to another person, that person needs to be

35:26

aware of it. Because it's their

35:28

life you're playing with. The Bregallis

35:31

family had made that exact case in a

35:33

civil lawsuit, claiming the dentist David

35:35

Acker had a responsibility to tell his

35:37

patients he had AIDS. That

35:39

turned out to be a winning argument. They

35:41

got a $1 million settlement from one insurance

35:43

company and an undisclosed amount from

35:46

another. But Kimberly didn't have

35:48

much use for money. She was

35:50

dying. And she wanted to leave a legacy. The

35:53

way I feel is informed consent is very important.

35:55

I was never given that chance to get up

35:57

and walk out. And look what happened. Kimberly

36:00

believed that she was proof that it should

36:02

be mandatory for healthcare workers to get tested

36:05

for HIV. And she wasn't alone

36:07

in that opinion. I did agree

36:09

that if it was a healthcare where they're

36:11

doing invasive procedures of any kind, yes, you

36:13

should have gotten tested. Lisa

36:15

Shoemaker again. She was one of the

36:17

other patients whose strain of HIV was

36:19

a close match for Dr. Akers. If

36:22

you are infected or infectious to somebody, you want

36:24

to watch it and make sure you're not hurting

36:26

someone else. In

36:29

1991, it felt like momentum was building, that

36:32

mandatory testing might become a reality.

36:35

Sources say CDC officials may recommend

36:37

that certain doctors be routinely tested

36:39

for AIDS and that those infected

36:42

be restricted from surgery or other

36:44

invasive procedures. A lot

36:46

of Americans thought that sounded reasonable, but

36:49

AIDS activists were horrified. There

36:52

were all sorts of mandatory testing

36:54

proposals floating around, but pushing

36:57

to test healthcare workers was, I

36:59

think, particularly ominous. That's

37:02

David Barr again. As an

37:04

HIV-positive gay man and the assistant director

37:06

of policy at Gay Men's Health Crisis,

37:08

he believed that mandatory testing would actually

37:11

make the epidemic worse. Because

37:13

even without compulsory tests, it was extremely

37:15

tough to find anyone to work with

37:17

patients who had HIV and AIDS. There

37:21

were a lot of healthcare workers who refused to

37:23

touch people with HIV. A lot

37:25

of the healthcare workers who would work with

37:27

people with AIDS were gay, so they were

37:30

more likely to have HIV. So

37:33

we were concerned that mandatory testing would

37:35

only make it harder to get healthcare

37:37

workers working on AIDS in the first

37:39

place. This wasn't

37:41

just a theoretical concern. There were

37:43

more than a dozen known cases

37:46

where an HIV-positive healthcare worker lost

37:48

their job after their status got

37:50

revealed. That discrimination was

37:52

motivated by fear, not science,

37:54

because when doctors and dentists

37:56

practiced universal precautions, like wearing

37:58

gloves and pro-dependence, properly sterilizing

38:00

their equipment, there was almost no

38:03

risk of HIV transmission. And

38:05

there were many people who

38:08

had been treated by HIV-positive

38:10

healthcare workers, and you weren't

38:12

seeing infections. So this was

38:15

unnecessary. Yeah, but there is a risk.

38:17

The risk is there. That's

38:19

where Kimberly Bragales came in. Her

38:21

case showed the transmission was possible.

38:24

And it could happen to anyone. You know, yeah, that

38:26

risk is small, but I'm the one that came down

38:28

with it. It happened, and

38:31

it took my life away. In

38:33

that interview, which got broadcast

38:35

in early 1991, Kimberly sounded

38:37

like herself. But by

38:39

the summer, she'd become incredibly frail.

38:42

And when a reporter asked her a question, her

38:45

response was barely audible. Do you

38:47

see yourself as

38:50

sort of the representative of AIDS

38:52

victims nationwide? Yes, I

38:55

do. It doesn't matter how

38:57

they got it. It's

38:59

a disease. It's AIDS. And

39:01

it's horrible. Kimberly's

39:04

strongest statement came in a letter released

39:06

by her attorney. It was

39:08

directed at the bureaucrats she believed had cast

39:10

doubt on her story and

39:12

the policymakers who hadn't taken action to

39:15

prevent other cases like hers. And

39:17

it was incredibly angry. She

39:20

wrote, I blame Dr. Acker

39:22

and every single one of you

39:24

bastards. Anyone who knew Dr.

39:27

Acker was infected and had full blown AIDS

39:29

and stood by not doing a damn thing

39:31

about it. Her

39:33

family members read more from the letter and

39:35

the documentary never say goodbye. Unless

39:38

a cure is found, I'll be another one of

39:40

your statistics soon. You know what it's like to look

39:42

at yourself in a full length mirror before you shower

39:44

and you only see a skeleton? If laws

39:46

are not formed to provide protection, then my

39:48

suffering and death was in vain. I'm

39:51

dying, guys. Goodbye. And

39:54

that was a letter from Kimberly. Forgot

39:56

it. In July 1991,

40:00

Kimberly's words made it to the floor of

40:02

the United States Senate, thanks to Jesse

40:04

Helms. I never used

40:06

IV drugs. Never

40:08

slept with anyone. I

40:10

blame Dr. Aser and

40:12

every single one of you bastards." In

40:18

another episode this season, you heard about

40:21

how Helms used Robert Maplethorpe's photographs to

40:23

spread the lie that gay men were

40:25

sexual predators. Now the

40:28

Republican Senator found something to exploit

40:30

in the Kimberly-Brigalis case. Contrary

40:32

to all evidence, he claimed that

40:35

gay doctors were infecting patients everywhere

40:37

with HIV. We

40:39

have sat on our hands and bowed to

40:41

the homosexual lobby time and time

40:43

again. When

40:45

this senator and others have stood on

40:47

this floor pleading that something be done

40:50

about these people who are responsible for the

40:52

spread of AIDS. It

40:56

wasn't just Jesse Helms. Kimberly's

40:58

letter and the cause of mandatory

41:00

testing also caught the attention of

41:02

a California congressman named William Danimeyer.

41:05

It is not unreasonable to suggest in

41:07

the case of this epidemic in America

41:09

that the civil rights of the uninfected

41:11

should take precedence over the civil rights

41:13

of the infected. Danimeyer had

41:15

written an entire book about what he

41:17

saw as the threat of homosexuality, and

41:20

in 1991 he'd become the Bregalis'

41:23

biggest political ally. The

41:25

Republicans sponsored a bill to mandate

41:27

HIV testing and disclosure for health

41:29

care workers. He called

41:31

it the Kimberly-Brigalis Act and asked

41:33

Kimberly herself to testify before Congress.

41:36

Despite her failing health, her family

41:39

accepted the invitation. Kimberly

41:46

traveled from Florida by train, and reporters

41:48

tagged along to document the trip. At

41:54

the Amtrak station, her legs were too feeble

41:56

to bear her own weight, so her parents

41:58

held her up between So

42:01

weak she spent an entire 16-hour train ride

42:03

from Florida to Washington lying in her sleeper

42:05

car, the only way she could make the

42:07

trip. But she refuses to quit.

42:10

This is a horrible disease

42:13

we need to have.

42:15

Mandatory laws. Mandatory

42:17

laws. Yes. You want

42:19

to see doctors test it? Yes.

42:23

In Washington, on the morning of September

42:25

26th, Kimberly was wheeled into a hearing

42:27

room. And

42:29

it was a zoo. It was

42:32

a media frenzy. David

42:34

Barr was also in the room that day. He

42:37

was there to testify against the Kimberly-Brigalis

42:39

Act. And in front

42:41

of her table, it was a mob

42:43

scene of journalists, 30, 40

42:46

people all crammed lying on the

42:48

floor and snapping continually.

42:52

Kimberly spoke for just 21 seconds. I'd

42:56

like to say that age is a terrible

42:58

disease if you must take seriously. I

43:01

did nothing wrong, yet I'm being made to

43:03

suffer like this. My life has been taken

43:06

away. Please, in

43:08

that sense, I just want to say this is

43:10

a notation for how to be a care provider.

43:12

We'll have to go through the hell that I

43:14

have. Thank you.

43:19

Thank you very much. George

43:21

Magallis spoke next for significantly longer

43:23

than his daughter. Chairman

43:26

Waxman, members of

43:28

this subcommittee, my

43:30

wife said this morning on national TV that

43:32

Kimberly is America's shame. Kimberly

43:35

is your shame also. He

43:38

told Congress that the civil rights of health

43:40

care workers weren't his concern. People

43:43

were put here to represent the majority of

43:45

the people, not the minority

43:47

of the people. He

43:49

also dismissed the claim that mandatory testing

43:52

would cost at least a billion dollars

43:54

while saving, at best, a handful of lives.

43:57

Does that type of logic mean... off

44:00

Hitler had been responsible for only a

44:02

handful of Jewish deaths, it would have

44:04

been acceptable. One

44:06

day, we will all be

44:09

held accountable by our ultimate judge.

44:12

We will face that day while at

44:14

clear conscience, will you? When

44:18

her father finished reading his statement, Kimberly

44:20

was wheeled out of the room. And with

44:22

that, most of the press cleared out. But

44:26

the hearing wasn't over. I was

44:28

sitting with two or three other

44:30

people and we were going to testify at the

44:32

table to the left, and there was nobody in

44:34

front of us at all. When

44:37

it was David's turn to speak, he said

44:39

that no other case of AIDS has received

44:41

more attention than that of Kimberly Bragales. He

44:44

told the politicians that he and Kimberly actually

44:46

had a lot in common. They

44:48

were both young and spoke their minds and

44:50

had family and friends that cared for them.

44:53

And then David talked about something else they

44:56

shared. It's the one thing

44:58

that has struck me most about Ms. Bragales,

45:00

the one thing that feels most familiar to

45:02

me, her anger. I

45:04

appreciate and share your anger, Kimberly.

45:06

I too am very angry. Like

45:09

you, I feel that I do not deserve

45:11

this fate. Although we may

45:13

have acquired this virus in different ways, I

45:15

have never asked for this, and neither did

45:17

I have over the 115,000

45:20

Americans who have already died. I am

45:23

angry that our government will criminalize healthcare

45:25

workers instead of allowing them to do

45:27

their jobs. They will test patients instead

45:29

of providing care. They will collect names

45:31

instead of providing treatments that could save

45:34

our lives, yours and mine, Kimberly. Here

45:37

we are together at this circus, being

45:39

pitted against each other. Do

45:41

not allow your case to be used as

45:43

a means to draw attention away from the

45:45

real threat that we, as individuals and as

45:48

a nation, face from AIDS.

45:55

What next for the Bragales family now with

45:57

this behind you? But

46:00

we will continue to speak out. We will

46:02

continue to talk to the press. It's gonna

46:04

happen again. There's gonna be more Kim Bergales

46:06

is happening again. Kimberly

46:10

Bergales and her parents flew home on

46:12

a private jet donated by an air

46:14

ambulance company. Once again,

46:16

a reporter came along for the ride. Wearing

46:19

a wool sweater and covered by a

46:21

blanket, the 23-year-old AIDS victim settled

46:23

in, exhausted from all the excitement,

46:26

no doubt replaying her incredible

46:28

experience in her mind. The

46:30

footage from that plane ride is hard to

46:32

watch. Kimberly is lying

46:34

down and looks totally drained. And

46:37

then her parents say she's up for answering

46:39

one or two questions. You

46:42

think you did your best? Yes,

46:44

I did. Did

46:46

you think your husband did my beat very

46:48

good in this? Yes, I don't

46:50

know if it had any effect on him. Ask

46:53

him. Ask him, please. I'm

46:56

so sorry. I'm so sorry. Back

47:00

home in Florida, Kimberly was bedridden.

47:03

She and her family, since the end, was

47:05

coming soon. I'm

47:07

ready. But I

47:09

just don't seem to be able to go.

47:13

Kimberly could barely speak

47:15

at this time. She

47:18

was skeletal, wasted away

47:20

like too many people did

47:22

from AIDS. Journalist

47:24

Michael Cheek went to see Kimberly in

47:26

December 1991. It

47:29

was very difficult to not

47:31

cry in front of her. The

47:36

one thing I did not write about was

47:39

the fear that

47:41

you could see, because

47:45

I think she knew we

47:48

were there to say goodbye. Kimberly

47:53

Bergalis, the Florida woman who got AIDS from

47:55

her dentist, has died. She was 23 years

47:57

old. Aids

48:01

had now claimed the lives of both

48:03

David Acker and Kimberly Bragales. In

48:06

her final days, Kimberly had gone to

48:08

Washington to try to spark Congress into

48:10

action. But the Kimberly-Bragales Act,

48:12

which faced enormous opposition from medical

48:14

groups and AIDS activists, never made

48:16

it out of committee. The

48:19

mandatory testing bill was dead in the water. It

48:21

didn't go anywhere. So ultimately

48:23

we won that battle. In

48:27

1991, the CDC issued new

48:29

guidelines suggesting but not requiring

48:31

that HIV-positive healthcare workers notify

48:34

their patients. Today

48:36

that recommendation is no longer in effect.

48:40

In the process of reporting out this

48:42

story, we reached out to the families

48:44

of David Acker and Kimberly Bragales, but

48:46

didn't hear back. We'll

48:48

likely never know, with absolute certainty,

48:51

whether Dr. Acker transmitted HIV to

48:53

Kimberly and five other patients. But

48:56

more than 30 years later, there's no alternative

48:58

theory that holds up to scrutiny. And

49:01

then there's this. Since Dr.

49:03

Acker, there hasn't been a single documented

49:06

case in the entire country of HIV

49:09

transmission from a healthcare worker to a patient. If

49:11

he did infect those six people, the

49:14

CDC and Dr. Carol Soselsky could never

49:16

figure out how. Whatever

49:18

happened in that dental office, nobody

49:21

will know, but whatever it was was clearly

49:23

very strange. Does

49:25

it nag at you at all that you weren't

49:27

able to solve it on your end? Well, a little

49:30

bit, but I don't think people

49:32

appreciate how difficult it was. You

49:34

know, there's almost no way it

49:36

really could have been solved. Four

49:39

of the six patients whose strain of HIV

49:41

matched David Acker's died of AIDS within just

49:44

a few years. Lisa Shoemaker

49:46

is one of two who's still alive.

49:49

I don't believe he meant to harm anybody

49:51

because usually when you get into the health

49:54

arena, you're there to help people, not to

49:56

harm them. the

50:00

mid-1990s, teaching teenagers about HIV

50:02

and AIDS. She also

50:04

served on the board of the Presidential

50:07

Advisory Council on HIV-AIDS for four years.

50:10

And a lot of the men that I got to be friends with

50:14

would just pass away and I wouldn't even find out

50:16

until I go to the meetings. It

50:18

was hard, because you're still

50:20

here. I wasn't supposed

50:22

to make it. I'm a

50:24

very lucky guy. David Barr

50:27

is still here too, three decades

50:29

after he got his diagnosis and

50:31

testified against the Kimberly-Brigalis Act. Anti-retroviral

50:34

therapy pioneered in the mid-90s has

50:36

extended lifespans far beyond what seemed

50:38

possible at the height of the

50:41

epidemic, but David refuses to

50:43

get complacent. All of

50:45

those things that we were grappling with then,

50:47

we're still grappling with. There

50:50

are still more than 35,000 new HIV

50:52

infections in the United States every year.

50:56

Only among black and Latino gay men

50:59

who have no HIV

51:01

services outside of major

51:03

cities on the coast, there's

51:06

no reason other than

51:08

willful neglect. Everything

51:11

I said to Kimberly about

51:13

the things I'm angry about is

51:15

as true today as it was

51:18

then. Very

51:29

soon, Slate Plus subscribers will get a

51:31

special behind-the-scenes conversation with our team about

51:34

how we put together our 1990 stories.

51:38

In addition, as a member, you'll also

51:40

hear every Slate podcast without ads and

51:43

never hit the paywall on

51:45

Slate's site. If you'd like

51:47

to sign up for Slate

51:50

Plus, go to slate.com/oneyearplus. Again,

51:52

that's slate.com/oneyearplus. That

51:56

was the finale of One Year 1990. Thanks for

51:58

coming along. with us. And if you want even

52:00

more one year, we've got seasons on 1977, 1995,

52:03

1986, 1942, and

52:09

1955 in our back catalog. I

52:12

do have an announcement to make, which is

52:14

that Slate has suspended production of one year

52:16

for now. That means there

52:18

are no current plans to make more episodes.

52:21

Our whole team is incredibly proud of the work we've

52:23

done on the show, and it's been a joy

52:25

to hear about what it's meant to you. Hey,

52:29

this is Evan Chung, one year's senior producer.

52:32

If you have a favorite episode, or moment, or

52:34

there's anything else that you want to tell us

52:36

about our series, please leave us

52:38

a voicemail at 203-343-0777. And if you do

52:40

call in, we've got some special one-year

52:47

merch that we'll send you while supplies

52:49

last. That's 203-343-0777. This

52:58

episode was written by Kelly Jones and

53:01

me, Josh Levine, one year's editorial director.

53:04

Our senior producer is Evan Chung. It

53:07

was produced by Kelly Jones and Evan

53:09

Chung, with additional production by Olivia Bryley.

53:11

This episode was edited by Joel

53:14

Meyer and Derek John, Slate's executive

53:16

producer of narrative podcasts. Our

53:18

senior technical director is Merit Jacob, and

53:20

we had mixing help from Kevin Bendis.

53:23

Holly Allen created the artwork for this season.

53:26

We had production help this season from Jabari

53:28

Butler. Mark C. Rahm's

53:31

book, Fatal Extraction, was a valuable

53:33

resource for this episode. The title

53:35

of this episode comes from Timothy F.

53:37

Murphy's essay in the book Ethics in

53:39

an Epidemic, AIDS, Morality, and Culture. Some

53:42

of the audio you heard comes from

53:44

the Wolfson Archives at Miami-Dade College, and

53:47

the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and

53:49

Peabody Awards Collection at the University of

53:51

Georgia. Thank you

53:53

to David Sifford III, Harold

53:55

Jaffe, Chen Yeo, Don Mariano,

53:58

Gail Namo, Lawrence Gostin, Ruth

54:01

Finkelstein, Nikki Ikhanemu, Lee

54:03

Blessing, and Stephen Raines, whose

54:05

book of poems, A Quilt for David, was

54:08

also valuable to us as we made this

54:10

episode. Special thanks to

54:12

all of the producers who've worked on the show,

54:15

Madeline Deschamps, who was there at

54:17

the beginning, plus Sophie Sommigrad, Shayna

54:19

Roth, Fam Kim, and Soul Worthen.

54:22

And thank you to Christina Kottarucci

54:25

and Joel Anderson for contributing amazing

54:27

episodes. And thank you to everyone

54:29

who made one year 1990 possible.

54:32

Susan Matthews, Forrest Wickman, Katie

54:35

Shepherd, Hilary Frey, Katie

54:37

Raiford, Ben Richmond, Kaitlyn

54:39

Schneider, Cleo Levin, Seth

54:41

Brown, Rachel Strom, Jessica

54:43

Seidman, Karen Fialman, Andrew

54:45

Robinson, Riley McCaskill, Emily

54:47

John, and Alicia Montgomery,

54:49

Slate's VP of Audio.

54:53

And thanks to all of you for listening. Thank

54:58

you.