Depositions, private investigator reports, and medical records were leaked to journalist Stephen Barr writing for Lear's Magazine.
In context, the Ryan White CARE Act was being debated in Congress, but it was met with opposition because HIV infection was perceived to be caused by stigmatizing risk factors such as homosexuality, substance use, and sexual promiscuity.
Testifying to Congress, Bergalis claimed "I did nothing wrong" and legislators were moved by the story of a white self-proclaimed virgin victimized by a reckless gay man.
The case of the "Florida Dracula Dentist" has gone down in AIDS history alongside "Patient Zero" Gaetan Dugas as legends who have been unfairly demonized.
During the last months of her life, Bergalis' case was cited by some politicians and journalists as an example of a 'blameless' HIV infection that had been allowed to happen due to the CDC and the healthcare industry being overly responsive to the concerns of AIDS activists and the gay community.
In an obituary, the National Review wrote that Bergalis: came to feel she had a special calling...to bring a glimmer of truth, however forlorn, into a debate characterized by confusion, denial, smugness, and suicidal self-indulgence... 'No sexual history' is how the jaded describe a chaste woman of 23 who, as Miss Bergalis explained to disbelieving interviewers, 'wanted to wait for marriage.'
[1] Her funeral was held on December 12 in her hometown of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, after which she was buried in Saints Peter and Paul RC Lithuanian Cemetery.
[15] Nearly three years after Bergalis’ death, in June 1994, CBS aired an episode of 60 Minutes that included a segment covering Acer and the patients he allegedly infected.
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.