The virus that claims Jenny's life is not specified in the film. Director Robert Zemeckis never revealed what her affliction was, stating that it was irrelevant, and that he didn't even tell Robin Wright. Jenny says in the movie that the doctors do not know what the virus is, and that they can do nothing about it. This information, combined with the time period in which she got sick (early 80s), coincided with the HIV epidemic, so many people assumed Jenny died of AIDS. However, in the sequel book "Gump & Co" the author mentions that Jenny dies from Hepatitis C, contracted as a former drug addict in the 70s. Hepatitis C was not isolated and named until 1989. It was often fatal until effective treatments were developed during the 2000s. The disease, in fact, had been around for an extremely long time, but bundled in with diagnoses of the single illness of hepatitis.

Film

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