And The Band Played On

I feel that this movie did a great job at portraying the AIDS epidemic. It showed how they also had to deal with bureaucracy and a government that just did not seem to care. They called it a “gay” disease, even though it was found in males, females, children and hemophiliacs, some of which were straight.

What really bothers me the most was the opportunities that existed by several people to catch this disease at various stages and it just was not done. This movie really does show how the AIDS epidemic reached the stages that it did before anything was done, and how the Doctors, researchers and even the federal government and the CDC contributed as much to the development of the disease as they did to discovering it.

I was also discouraged to hear that throughout this tragedy, there were actually people who might have been more concerned with helping and protecting their own reputation and agenda, as well as accepting the credit for their work in breaking down the disease. I do not know what it will take to remove political deliberation from life and death struggles, but what we need to do is work at saving lives, and worry about who gets credit later.