67 pages • 2 hours read
Randy ShiltsAnd The Band Played On
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 58 Summary: “Reunion”
In Washington, DC, the Third International Conference on Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome commences. By 1987, there are more “celebrity AIDS patients” but “the disease remained fundamentally embarrassing” (585).
Between Congress and the Reagan Administration, the issues are the same with the struggles in AIDS funding. Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop is appointed; he is a medical professional with a history of “conservative religious fundamentalism” (587),and the administration decides to assign him the task of writing a report on the AIDS epidemic.
In his report, “the problem of AIDS was addressed in purely public health terms, stripped of politics” (587). Without allowing the administration to see his material, he sends copies of his research, which validates what AIDS experts, researchers, and medical professional had been saying. Not only does he encourage AIDS education from primary school, but he also promotes the use of condoms. Dr. Koop recommends that a “push for more testing should be accompanied by guarantees of confidentiality and nondiscrimination” (587).
The report becomes an “immediate media sensation” (588), as it provides for the topic to be discussed bluntly, without being corrupted by “the language of AIDSpeak” (588). The report also becomes a source of tension for the administration, and now Reagan, who “still had not given an address on the six-year-old epidemic” (589) is pushed to declare his stance on the topic. He decides to speak at a fundraising dinner at the AIDS conference.
At the fundraiser, Elizabeth Taylor awards Dr. Koop for his work, while Dr. Gottlieb awards Dr. Gallo for his work. Despite the bickering over the rights for the discovery of AIDS, Gallo refers to the Pasteur Institute’s contributions. Later, the issue would become an international controversy until the matter was settled by President Reagan and French President Jacques Chirac in a White House ceremony: “It was one of the first times in the history of science that heads of state were called upon to resolve a dispute over a viral discovery” (593).
A few days later, in front of the White House, Cleve Jones leads a protest with people chanting, “History will recall, Reagan did the least of all” (600). By now, all the media houses have reporters covering AIDS and “[p]eople were paying attention finally” (601).
Chapter 59 Summary: “The Feast of the Hearts, Part III”
In San Francisco, Bill asks for his glasses, but his friends don't understand his mumblings: “It was as if Bill were speaking some strange mix of German and gibberish. Somewhere between his brain and his mouth, his words were lost” (602).
When his condition gets worse, his friend, Catherine Cusic pushes him to go to the hospital. Previously, Bill’s roommate observes his symptoms as arising from neurological disorder. Now, Bill rarely leaves his flat, paranoid that his political enemies would take pleasure in his misery. His friends try to convince him that he is a hero for his accomplishments in “federal funding, public education, gay community responsibility, [and] wider accessibility of treatments” (603).
By Christmas, and having witnessed Bill’s diarrhea, nausea, incontinence, and apparent seizure, Catherine pressures him to shift to the hospital. Dr. Conant gets him a bed at the UCSF Medical Center, and his friends take shifts spending time with him. After giving him neurological tests, the doctors diagnose him with a brain disease, cryptococcal meningitis. For Bill, “[h]is intelligence meant more to him than any other quality” (604).
During a night shift with Bill, his friend, Dennis, stays with him. When the nurse comes to check his temperature, the thermometer falls from his jaw. They both realize that he’s motionless and the nurse observes, “Now I can see […] He’s dead, but that really isn’t him, is it?” (605).
Part 9 Analysis
Shilts explains the reason he wrote this book through a passage from Hermann Hesse’s The Journey is the East: “I either had to write the book or be reduced to despair” (583). With the book, Shilts, an openly gay journalist who himself died of AIDS complications, was able to document the narrative for those around and after to see the shame and triumphs in handling the epidemic. It was also, at least in a sense, his way of actively combatting AIDS.
Although others infected, such as designer Perry Ellis or Conservative fund-raiser Terry Dolan, would still be reticent in accepting they had AIDS as the disease “remained fundamentally embarrassing,” (585) those that admitted to their fight, such as Bill Kraus, became heroes in Shilts’ eyes.
However, despite the prominent deaths, the increased media coverage, and the known dangers of the epidemic, the Reagan Administration’s health officials’ problems remain proof of “the message that the AIDS challenge still was not being met” (586), with AIDS cases projected to be 270,000 and deaths totaling 179,000. It was not until the report of Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, in 1986, that the prevailing mindset changed. It took “an ultra-conservative fundamentalist” (588) and, of course, Rock Hudson to gain the nation’s and government's trust and belief showing that action just needed the right image—and that is what the solution of AIDS ultimately rested on. As Cleve Jones notes, “The story of the AIDS epidemic was that simple […] it was a story of bigotry and what it could do to a nation” (601).
