Reddit Reddit reviews And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition

We found 14 Reddit comments about And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition
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14 Reddit comments about And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition:

u/fahcredit · 83 pointsr/gaybros

And The Band Played On is worth a read, if you've not already read it.

u/lordlaser9 · 66 pointsr/askgaybros

I share your frustration. HIV incubated quietly for a decade before the bodies started to pile up. When the next lethal megavirus emerges (and it will), PreP won't save us. The condom-free crew will have already infected millions of our neighbors and partners. We can only hope that it won't be as deadly as the AIDS complex.

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I worry about the deaths, but I also worry about the future of our rights and our place within modern society. We are currently at the "fool me once" stage of global sexual disease transmission. If the next virus is as lethal as HIV and the gay community is the leading carrier again, I am worried that the world will be less forgiving.

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I'm not opposed to casual sex, by the way. Have had around 50 partners. I just consider it a personal duty to protect our community's reputation by refraining from unsafe sex. All sex without a condom is unsafe outside of an exclusive relationship.

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My reasoning and instincts come from this book, which discusses the cultural response to the spread of HIV/AIDS, situation within the context of the bathhouse and free love subcultures of the 70s and 80s.

https://www.amazon.com/Band-Played-Politics-Epidemic-20th-Anniversary/dp/0312374631

u/starryrach · 26 pointsr/lgbt

It is well-known in public health circles that Reagan really dropped the ball at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

The entire story is told really well in the book And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts.

A lot of the comments here are suggesting that Reagan didn't do anything wrong, because there weren't good treatments available at the time, and that wasn't his fault. That's true, but it was becoming increasingly clear that gay people were at much higher risk, and this was likely due to AIDS being a sexually transmitted disease. Instead of focusing efforts towards education on safe sex, Reagan did nothing. His surgeon general, C Everett Koop, defied the wishes of the White House and sent information pamphlets to all households in the US talking about condoms and safe sex practices.

u/dentonite · 19 pointsr/CanadaPolitics

Yes, thank you, I'm aware. I am a gay man who volunteers with an HIV/AIDS organization. I might just know the history reasonably well.

These policies were made in a time of inadequate information, in response to a dramatic failure on the part of multiple state and medical industry actors. (I suggest And The Band Played On for a good overview of the early years of the crisis, and how many institutional fuckups contributed to the tainted blood .) They were completely understandable for the time, if still an "Ewww, gay sex is icky"-influenced overreaction - when AIDS was an inevitable death sentence, and associated exclusively with a disfavoured group.

However, with the last 25 years of advances in HIV testing and treatment, those policies are no longer reasonable precautions, but overreactions based more on fear than current scientific evidence.

u/CarmellaKimara · 6 pointsr/bestoflegaladvice

Nope, because HIV can take six months to show up on a test.

As for why no monogamy exception: In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, plenty of men that were monogamous had unfaithful partners and thus they ended up with AIDS despite no risky sexual behavior themselves.

Source: And the Band Played On. Would recommend.

u/b4xt3r · 3 pointsr/pics

I thought it was Gay Related Infectious Disease (I read And The Band Played On a while back and if anyone hasn't read that book I strongly suggest doing so).

u/bummer_camp · 3 pointsr/ftm

Lucky for me my recovery week was during the summer olympics so there was constant mildly entertaining television to watch. I also played a lot of Lego Harry Potter on Xbox (lol) and watched a ton of Netflix/Hulu/etc. I did some reading too but not as much as I had anticipated since I chose a fairly heavy book to read (And the Band Played On which, at 10 months post op, I'm still reading lmao). I also had friends over which helped a ton.

u/Y_pestis · 3 pointsr/booksuggestions

Not quite the same as your examples, but some of my favorite non-fiction science are...

The Coming Plague

And The Band Played On

The Disappearing Spoon

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat

I could probably come up with a few others if any of these seem to be what interests you.

u/mypreciousssssssss · 2 pointsr/NoStupidQuestions

This book is a fascinating history of the AIDS epidemic: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312374631/

u/dd4tasty · 2 pointsr/funny

"And The Band Played On"

http://www.amazon.com/And-Band-Played-On-20th-Anniversary/dp/0312374631

showed that this was pretty much the position of the US government at the time too.

u/ladyinread · 2 pointsr/interestingasfuck

If anyone has not yet read it, I highly recommend And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. This is the synopsis:

Upon it's first publication twenty years ago, And The Band Played on was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of investigatve reporting. An international bestseller, a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and made into a critically acclaimed movie, Shilts' expose revealed why AIDS was allowed to spread unchecked during the early 80's while the most trusted institutions ignored or denied the threat. One of the few true modern classics, it changed and framed how AIDS was discussed in the following years. Now republished in a special 20th Anniversary edition, And the Band Played On remains one of the essential books of our time.

I read it and it was fantastic. It's everything you ever wanted to know about the beginnings of AIDS from insiders who were really researching and in the middle of it (and affected by it).

u/jrmax · 1 pointr/gaybros

As an add on to this, if anyone has a lot of time to kill read "And The Band Played On" which I believe is also a documentary. It's a long, long read but very interesting look at the AIDS epidemic from the beginning of the 80's up to 87 set against the framework of gay life at the time.

u/DarnHeather · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Very late here. I was a child in the 80's. I can remember a friend asking me on my swingset what AIDS was and doing the best an 8 year old could to reassure her. Then a few years later received a [pamphlet] (http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Narrative/QQ/p-nid/87) in the mail from the government.

We had a man in our church who contacted AIDS through blood transfusions during surgery. My mother told me his wife contracted it by cleaning and caring for me. Even then I thought that was bullshit.

By the time I was having sex everyone knew you just needed to use condoms and that was it.

I highly recommend the book [And the Band Played On] (http://www.amazon.com/And-Band-Played-On-20th-Anniversary/dp/0312374631/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341674599&sr=8-1&keywords=and+the+band+played+on) by Randy Shilts.

u/[deleted] · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Maybe before you go spouting shit like this you should try reading "And The Band Played On". The book reveals why AIDS was allowed to spread unchecked during the early 80's while the most trusted institutions ignored or denied the threat.

But, judging from your posting history both on this account and on your JDX3DS account, you don't have any interest in learning about this kind of subject since it's far easier to spew hateful rhetoric.

And, as mugglefucker pointed out, I find it interesting that you're so anti-gay and yet you had a link about visiting a bathhouse ready for your post... makes me think that there's more to your gay-bashing talk than you want anyone to believe.