And the Band Played on

“And the Band Played On”: Healthcare System under Pressure

Sabrina Dowdy

February 24, 2015

Hsci 1301

And the Band Played On is a documentary movie that specifies on the outbreak of the AIDS virus in the 1980s. People were dying from seemingly harmless illnesses and the petrifying part was that nobody knew the reason why. The distressing time displayed in the movie also served to showcase the many flaws in the healthcare system and the government. There were thousands of people dying from AIDS, yet the officials were pondering on not closing the bathhouses where most men contracted the disease. This was a truly frustrating situation because even though the Center for Disease Control and Prevention began to become fully aware of the causes of the virus, they would not fully update this information to the public.

Going by the health field concept, the AIDS virus basically destroyed human biology by way of killing off T cells and in association, harming the immune system. Many citizens did not know they had the disease until they suffered an infection that their weak immune system could not fight. In the approximately five-year time span that “And the Band Played On” covered, they were never able to find anything close to a medicine/cure for AIDS. Promiscuous lifestyles were partly to blame for the spread of the virus, a statement that infuriated the homosexual community. They took it as an attack on their sexual preferences, understandable due to the abuse they suffered in the previous decades.

Healthcare organizations took a toll on their reputation with the misinformation and confusion that revolved AIDS. Dr. Gallo was presented as the self-seeking villain in the unearthing of AIDs being a retrovirus because apparently the French were the real pioneers of the subject. The CDC tried to start a health advocacy to report the transmission of AIDS through blood transfusions. It posed a difficult problem to get the blood donor centers to check their donated...