AIDS Victim Infected by Dentist Dies : Disease: It is first such death tied to health worker. Kimberly Bergalis lobbied for bill on mandatory testing.
Kimberly Bergalis, who engaged in none of the high-risk behavior commonly associated with AIDS, died of the disease early Sunday at her home in Ft. Pierce, Fla. The 23-year-old woman is the only person in the United States believed to have died after contracting AIDS from a health care professional.
Bergalis, apparently infected by her dentist during a routine procedure, became a national symbol of the insidious nature of the epidemic after she left her deathbed in September and traveled to Washington to poignantly lobby Congress in favor of a bill that would make AIDS testing mandatory for some health care workers.
Seated in a wheelchair, her body hauntingly thin, she peered over a battery of photographers and, in a voice barely above a whisper, said: “I did not do anything wrong, yet I am being made to suffer like this.”
As moving as her 15-second testimony was, however, the so-called Bergalis bill failed in committee and Bergalis herself touched off a controversy when many AIDS activists saw her as the focal point of a conservative backlash directed at gays.
Robert Montgomery, an attorney for the Bergalis family, said Sunday that those criticisms were misdirected. “There are many lessons to be learned from Kimberly,” Montgomery said. “The courage and determination the child had was incredible. Her message was that this is not just a homosexual disease. It is everyone’s disease.”
Since the AIDS epidemic began about 10 years ago, the disease has claimed more than 113,000 lives in the United States. Medical authorities say that doctor-patient transmissions are extremely unlikely, although at least 40 of approximately 6,400 infected health care workers have contracted the virus from patients’ blood.
But Bergalis was the first patient in the nation believed to have contracted AIDS from a doctor without engaging in any of the high-risk activities. She said she never had used drugs, had a blood transfusion or engaged in sex.
In a scenario later confirmed by the federal Centers for Disease Control investigators, Bergalis’ dentist, Dr. David J. Acer, somehow infected her while removing two molars in December, 1987.
Once a tall, clear-eyed beauty with light brown hair, she weighed no more than 70 pounds at the end and complained of a pasty substance that coated her mouth and tongue like rust. Early last summer, her father, George, said that she stopped praying for miracles and prayed instead to die.
But in the fall she staged a brief rally, and during that time traveled to Washington by train to urge passage of the bill sponsored by Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton).
Over the last few months, Bergalis, her father and her mother, Anna, gave dozens of interviews urging mandatory testing of doctors, nurses and others involved in many invasive procedures.
“Do I blame myself?” Bergalis wrote last April in a note intended for a state health investigator. “I sure don’t. . . . I blame Dr. Acer and every single one of you bastards. Anyone who knew Dr. Acer was infected and had full-blown AIDS and stood by not doing a damn thing about it. You are all just as guilty as he was.
“If laws are not formed to provide protection, then my suffering and death was in vain.
“I’m dying, guys. Goodby.”
Acer, 40, of Stuart, Fla., died of AIDS in September, 1990, after selling his practice and advising his 1,700 former patients to be tested. Four other former patients of Acer have also tested positive for the same strain of the human immunodeficiency virus.
Despite an exhaustive investigation, CDC officials have been unable to establish exactly how Acer infected his patients. At first it was thought that Acer, a bisexual who found out that he had AIDS in 1987, had cut himself and bled into his patients’ mouths. Now, according to CDC investigators, evidence suggests that the dentist failed to disinfect his instruments.
The medical newsletter AIDS Alert reported that Acer was a careless practitioner who reused disposable equipment, treated patients without wearing gloves and concealed his own AIDS infection for years to protect the resale value of his practice. Days before his death, Acer wrote to his patients denying that he could have transmitted the virus. “I am a gentle man, and I would never intentionally expose anyone to this disease,” he said.
As the disease began to strip away her health, Bergalis wrote:
“Do you know what it’s like to look at yourself in a full-length mirror before you shower--and you only see a skeleton? Do you know what I did? I slid to the floor and I cried. Now, I shower with a blanket over the mirror.
“Well--I think I’ve said enough. Like I said--all is forgiven by me--there’s no hard feelings anymore. But I will never forget.”
A memorial service is scheduled for this evening.
