Posthumous Controversy
The time between Bergalis' dental procedure and the development of AIDS (24 months) was short; 1% of infected homosexual/bisexual men and 5% of infected transfusion recipients develop AIDS within 2 years of infection.
In June 1994, CBS's 60 Minutes aired a program reporting that Bergalis was treated for genital warts, a sexually transmitted disease, and had shown her on videotape allegedly claiming to have had sex with two different men during her life. However, none of Bergalis' former boyfriends tested positive for HIV. In addition, the 60 Minutes anchors argued that the CDC may have botched the genetic tests that proved that Bergalis had the same strain of HIV as her dentist. The television broadcast was dismissed by CDC scientists as misleading and inaccurate. Stephen Barr, a journalist who contributed to the show, rebutted this dismissal.
Read more about this topic: Kimberly Bergalis
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