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shilts[w88,jmc]		Review of And the Band Played On

	I finally got around to reading "And the Band Played On:
Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic" by Randy Shilts.  It's
600 pages and promised to be grim reading, but it is very well
written.  I want to discuss only one aspect of the book - the
allocation of blame and credit.

	Shilts sees the story as one of many individual people
and groups missing opportunities to mitigate the disaster in
spite of evidence mustered by other people, of whom he approves.
Those he criticizes include the Reagan Administration, the
National Cancer Institute including Robert Gallo, the leaders
of the homosexual communities and the homosexuals themselves,
New York officials at all levels and Blood Bank officials.
"Homophobia" plays a role but not a decisive one.  His heroes
include the Pasteur Institute, many doctors in the U.S., San
Francisco health officials, and the Centers for Disease Control
in Atlanta and the head of the Stanford Hospital blood bank.

	The missed opportunities, according to Shilts, include
isolating the HIV virus sooner, getting it out of the blood bank
supply sooner, getting the homosexuals to give up unsafe
sex including promiscuity sooner, instituting adequate
care sooner, and pursuing drug treatments sooner.

	To me his strongest case is the blood bank situation.  If all the
blood banks had done what Stanford did when Stanford did it, hundreds and
perhaps thousands of lives would have been saved.  Stanford started
testing in May 1983 for antibodies to hepatitis B and for immune
deficiency.  Testing didn't become general till the AIDS antibody test
became available in early 1985.