And The Band Played On

In San Francisco, Mayor Diane Feinstein becomes the first mayor of the city to face a recall for the “domestic partners’ veto” (227).

In Conant’s offices, Gary arrives with purple lesions. Although he does not confirm it with Gary immediately, Conant “quietly told his nurse to write on Gary’s chart that he had Kaposi’s sarcoma” (228). When Gary receives the official confirmation, he informs his former lover, Matt Krieger. Later, he speaks to Lu about returning to his practice upon a hopeful recovery, which was “the brief comfort of denial, that first stage in accepting any terminal diagnosis” (232).

In Paris, Dr. Barre observes that the lymphocytes were “dying off” (227) which is unexpected. After a few days, she sees upon measuring the radioactive assay that AIDS is a retrovirus but that its behavior does not resemble anything like that of HTLV: “It was a new retrovirus” (229). Because finding new viruses are rare, she and the team wait to have “exhaustive evidence to have their claim believed” (229).

In Washington DC, Bill’s mother comes to visit him, and Congressman Phil Burton, Bill’s boss, invites her into his office. Mary sense that the politician “had become something of a father figure to her younger son” (234).

The current reality of AIDS funding, per Reagan’s budget, means a “7 percent real decrease in money for the CDC” (235). Meanwhile, the NIH delays approving grants for research as the disease was still relatively new. In addition, internal conflict struck between the NCI and National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since “AIDS was established as an infectious disease, NIAID wanted more of the action,” while the “NCI argued that it had been working on the disease first” (236).

In Paris, Montagnier announces that a “new human retrovirus had been discovered” (237). Leibowitch is sent by Pasteur Production “to pick up the antibodies to HTLV” for Montagnier and Chermann. Secretly, he wanted “to help Dr. Robert Gallo prove that his virus, HTLV, was the cause of this epidemic” (240), as he has a dislike for the Pasteur Institute.

In Tijuana, Mexico, Gary goes to visit a healer and becomes hopeful when his lesions shrink.

In Washington, DC, there is pressure on the government to take action in protecting the blood supply. To appease both the blood banks and the CDC, the guidelines from the US Public Health Service recommend that “members of increased risk for AIDS should refrain from donating plasma and/or blood” (242).

On Castro Street, Joe and Gary are eating lunch. Gary has become depressed after his failed therapy in Mexico and asks Joe to assist him as he contemplates suicide.

In New York, Larry Kramer, disappointed in the gay community and officials, lashes out in an article titled, “1,112 and Counting.” Pointing out that gay doctors have “done nothing” and that gay men “value life and cocks and asses so much” (245), he also sheds light on the lack of grant funding by the NIH, on the CDC for falling behind in spreading the data and for the dismal AIDS coverage by The New York Times. The GMHC worries that Kramer’s article will spread panic and fear, but the article “swiftly crystalized the epidemic into a political movement for the gay community,” even if there was a “maelstrom of controversy that polarized gay leaders” (245). His piece also motivates Gary to start a candlelight march to raise awareness around AIDS issues.

Two days later, on March 9, Mayor Ed Koch and Health Commissioner David Sencer appoint Dr. Roger Enlow to the newly-formed Office of Gay and Lesbian Health Concerns. On the same day, Margaret Heckler becomes the secretary for the US Department of Health and Human Services, which concerns Congressman Waxman, as Heckler never seemed “to have much interest in issues related either to health or human services” (246). 

In San Francisco, Dana Van Gorder, an aide to Supervisor Harry Britt, points out that there was no informational literature on AIDS sent out by the Department of Public Health. Researchers from the University of California in San Francisco had been working on a study with the San Francisco General Hospital, with data pointing to the fact that “1 in 100 gay men in [the San Francisco Bay Area] already had AIDS” and a “person having twenty sexual contacts a year had 1 chance in 10 of making it with an AIDS sufferer” (253).

Mervyn Silverman, the Public Health Director, does not disperse the findings and neither do the researchers for fear of creating chaos and “losing community cooperation” (254). Instead, Bill Kraus takes the lead in laying out “an educational plan” on safe sex throughout the community. The study, however, is leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, and despite going against medical professionals, they publish it, with Selma Dritz going on “record confirming the study’s accuracy” (256).

Bill Kraus speaks to a sister of an AIDS patient fighting to get her brother disability benefits. Bill, with the help of Phil Burton, successfully lobbies and “secure[s] a national directive declaring AIDS a presumptive disability” (257).

In Paris, Montagnier, in his role as senior researcher, waits to announce the cause of AIDS, as he still has to prove that what they had found was a new virus and not a new opportunistic infection. Rozenbaum is restless, saying “My patients are dying […] I need a treatment” (263). Montagnier submits his paper for review and sends a draft to Gallo. Although Montagnier is sure of his retrovirus, Gallo manages to convince him to change the name from RUB “to say his retrovirus was from the HTLV family that, coincidentally, Gallo had originally discovered” (264).

In San Francisco, Bill receives a call that Congressman Phillip Burton has passed away. His widow, Sala, promises to run in a special election and urges Bill to push forward with his activism and work on gay issues.

In New York, Dr. Kevin Cahill, a notable doctor across the nation and especially within the New York Irish community, organizes a conference that includes Don Francis and William Foege from the CDC, Haitian AIDS specialist Dr. Sheldon Landesman, New York City Health Commissioner David Sencer, Mayor Ed Koch, and Manhattan Congressman Ted Weiss. Francis speaks of the “lack of resources” and “budget cuts”; the doctors only “applauded politely” (266). Later, Mayor Ed Koch agrees to meet privately with a small group of people, and the GMHC decides that Paul and another member, Mel Rosen, would represent them instead of Larry. Larry threatens to resign from the board if he is not allowed to attend; they unanimously decide to vote him out.

On April 11, 1983, the NCI becomes “firmly committed to finding the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” and Robert Gallo and his lab receive the “full resources of the NCI’s elite laboratory” (271).

In San Francisco, the two gay democratic organizations, the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club and the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club have always been at odds as they “still hated each other passionately” (278). Bill Kraus and the Milk Club wanted an “aggressive campaign” to inform the gay community of the epidemic and the recall election of Mayor Feinstein, while the Toklas Club desired a subtle approach “fearing panic could spread to heterosexuals” (279) and supported Feinstein. The Toklas Club has more influence on issues related to the San Francisco including health policy and Feinstein, ultimately, supports her allies.

Michael Gottlieb decides to breaks rank with the university’s protocol by asking the state legislature for money directly: “The idea was to channel money quickly to the impoverished AIDS labs” (281). Despite the punishment he would face ahead with other University of California researchers, he gains the support of California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, “the second most powerful official in the state” (281).

On May 2, Gary Walsh leads the gay march, which proves to be different from others in San Francisco, with many bringing “snapshots of friends who had died and others [carrying] signs” (284) honoring the deceased. Cleve Jones, in charge of the media presentation at the event, wants the world to see “these flesh-and-blood human AIDS patients” (285).

The MMWR newsletter shows that the data produced by Gallo, Essex, and Montagnier “represented the first hard evidence pointing toward a specific virus” (289). With the new information and under time constraints, Foege constructs a memo for his boss, Assistant Secretary for Health Edward Brandt, requesting funds to increase their efforts fighting AIDS. The note makes no difference.

On May 9, there is a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, which reveals the problems in AIDS research funding and the lack of strategies: “Rather than admit to past deficiencies and try to reconcile itself to AIDS funding needs, the administration would make its health officials lie about AIDS resource problems” (291).

In Atlanta, the CDC refuses to allow Susan Steinmetz from Representative Ted Weiss’s oversight committee to have access to files or researchers without permission. She suspects that the AIDS researchers do not have appropriate funding despite the claims from the government. Weiss calls her back to Washington, DC due to a lack of cooperation.

Later, during a House Appropriations Committee meeting, Dr. Brandt requests that money is diverted from other programs to increase AIDS money. The Committee approves a $12 million bill in funds for the NIH and CDC but denies his request. Next week, at the vote for the bill, no one objects, and on May 24, Dr. Brandt declares AIDS to be “our number-one priority” (298).

Anthony Fauci, an AIDS clinician at the NIH Hospital, writes a paper that suggests that household contact could be a potential risk in spreading AIDS. Arye Rubinstein is flabbergasted, as the “mode of transmission was fairly obvious and fit quite well with existing epidemiological data on AIDS”(300). Fauci attempts to defend himself, stating his words were taken out of context, as the media becomes hysterical. Although by this point the pathways in spreading AIDS were already established, the report “lent scientific credibility to ungrounded fears; the social damage would linger for years” (301).

In San Francisco, Gary is in the hospital for Pneumocystis. Gary’s anger at the government inaction on AIDS gives him the energy to keep moving and he becomes a favorite patient at the hospital for his “spunk” (303).

Dana Van Gorder calls for a meeting between gay leaders, AIDS educators, and the bathhouse owners to “discuss ways to make sure bathhouses were clean, that each patron was provided AIDS information, and that notices were prominently posted warning of AIDS” (304). Bill Kraus believes that with the number of gay men dying, bathhouses “should be shut down” (305).

At the Stanford University Blood Bank, Dr. Edgar Engelman figures out “that a person’s chance of contracting AIDS from a San Francisco transfusion was on the 1 in 10,000, maybe 1 in 5,000” (308) against the prevailing rhetoric of one-in-a-million. He orders their blood suppliers to begin having their blood tested within thirty days, or they would stop buying plasma from them. However, the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank does not follow suit, believing that their self-deferral guidelines will suffice.

In San Francisco, Merv Silverman is trying to appease all sides. As the public health director, he unveils the Department of Public Health’s AIDS poster, a move that reporter Barbara Taylor believes is “a lot of bullshit” (315) and that Silverman is not strict with the bathhouses.

Bill Kraus leaks an account of a meeting with bathhouse owners in which another public health official, who asks not to be named, urges that the best course of action was to shut the bathhouses down. Although Silverman does not have the power to force the bathhouses to comply with anything, he did have “broad authority to close anything that was a threat to public health” (316).

The Toklas Club believes that Bill Kraus and the Milk Club raised the presence of bathhouses as a danger and launch “a vitriolic counterattack” (317) because they thought gay businesses would suffer, and there is no proof that the epidemic spread through the bathhouses.

At the Pasteur Institute, Montagnier knows that the new virus has nothing to do with HTLV or RUB, so he calls it LAV, or a lymphadenopathy-associated virus. He meets another virologist that talks about lentiviruses mainly found in animals that mimic the virus he saw and “[i]n the lives of the French researchers, it was noted as the beginning of the great frustration,” as they now had proof it was a new virus “but nobody was going to believe them” (320).

Despite branding AIDS as an important issue, the government does little, with rumors flying that President Reagan would “veto the $12 million” for AIDS research (324). However, on June 16, the US Senate passes the $12 million AIDS bill, despite threats from the White House. Still, according to expert calculations, the Public Health Service would need to triple AIDS funding. The Reagan Administration ignores this information.

At the National AIDs forum, happening at the same time, conflicts arise of over the AIDS-prevention brochures brought by the San Francisco delegation, which Bill thinks to be “disgustingly amateurish and timid” (325). From New York, GMHC was mainly represented and considered itself apolitical with the departure of Larry Kramer. They had an education program that included symposiums, but these “lectures did not reach the people who needed an education most—the gay men who didn’t perceive AIDS as a threat to their own lives” (325).

In Naples, Italy, at the first workshop of the European Study Group on the Epidemic of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and Kaposi’s Sarcoma, Michael Gottlieb becomes interested in the presentation of Dr. Jean-Claude Chermann from the Pasteur Institute, as he realizes the “French had discovered the necessary lymphotrophic virus behind AIDS” (334).