Artists Responding to Aging and to HIV/AIDS

And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts
suggested by Amy Justice, MD, PhD

 

“Probably the most moving thing I have ever read on HIV/AIDS was And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts. Part of what made it moving for me is that he spent over a year writing it and refused to be tested for HIV until he finished because he didn’t want his writing to be influenced by the knowledge of his own status. I found his book honest and willing to ask hard questions of all those involved with the AIDS epidemic—including himself. He subsequently died of AIDS In 1994 just before cART become available. He is a hero.”

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Learn More about And The Band Played On and Randy Shilts:

Read the original book review in The New York Times, November 08, 1987: “Plenty of blame to go around.”

Review the obituary that ran in the Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1994: “Randy Shilts, Chronicler of AIDS Epidemic, Dies at 42 : Journalism: Author of ‘And the Band Played On‘ is credited with awakening nation to the health crisis.”

View a trailer for HBO’s 1993 adaptation of the book.

Check out the Wikipedia listing for And the Band Played On.

Amy Justice, MD, PhD is Professor of Medicine and Associate Professor of Public Health at Yale University School of Medicine and Section Chief of General Medicine at VA Connecticut. She has been the Principal Investigator of the Veterans Aging Cohort Study for more than a decade and studies how aging, substance use, comorbid disease, and treatment toxicity influence patient outcomes in HIV infection. (Dr. Justice is also a member of The Graying of AIDS advisory panel.)