Listen to News with Tara Benwell - Instructions:
1. Preview the vocabulary and read the gapfill text.
2. Play the news report and try to fill in the blanks.
3. Answer the comprehension questions by writing full sentences.
4. Use the discussion question to write an essay or discuss the story with other students.
5. Click "show Answers" to see the full text.
6. Pretend to be a news anchor by reading each story out loud.
dateline: 27 October 2016
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Science Clears Name of “Patient Zero”
Pre-Listening Vocabulary
- HIV: human immunodeficiency virus
- vilified: made into a villain (bad guy)
- scapegoat: a person who is unfairly blamed for all that went wrong
- boast: to speak proudly about something
- clear one’s name: to prove that someone is innocent
- sophisticated: advanced; high tech
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Science Clears Name of “Patient Zero”
Comprehension Questions
- Who is Gaetan Dugas?
- What did scientists use to clear Dugas’s name?
- What were the findings of the study?
Discussion Questions: In a medical diagram of a mysterious disease (AIDS), Dugas was identified as “Patient O” because he was from “outside” of California. He became famously known as “Patient Zero” when the letter O was misrepresented by the number 0 and a book was written about him. What are the dangers of focusing on a single patient (the first to carry a disease) when investigating an epidemic?
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Science Clears Name of “Patient Zero”
An Air Canada flight attendant who was accused of bringing HIV to the US has been cleared by science. Gaetan Dugas was vilified as “The Man Who Gave Us AIDS” in a New York Post article in 1987. The gay man from Quebec, Canada became a scapegoat for the epidemic after boasting of having many sexual partners. A new scientific study has officially cleared Dugas’s name more than thirty years after his death. Scientists used a sophisticated gene sequencing technique to trace the history of HIV in North America. The study found that HIV spread to New York from the Caribbean around 1970 before spreading westward across the US.
- Gaetan Dugas was a flight attendant from Quebec who was vilified as the man who brought HIV to the US.
- Scientists cleared Dugas’s name by using a sophisticated gene sequencing technique to trace the origins of HIV in the US.
- According to the study, HIV spread to New York from the Caribbean around 1970 before spreading westward across the country.
Written and recorded by Tara Benwell for EnglishClub
Tara Benwell is a Canadian freelance writer and editor who specializes in materials and articles for the ELT industry.
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