And The Band Played On

In Atlanta’s CDC offices, Don Francis believes that a “viral agent” is the cause of GRID (128). He is frustrated with the NCI for “still fiddling around with half-baked theories that GRID was caused by poppers or sperm” (128), and the NIH are suspicious that the CDC would say anything “to divert research funds” (129) from them.

In Los Angeles, Bill Darrow and Dave Auerbach continue interviewing the reported connections from the GRID cases and come across the name of Gaetan Dugas, one of the three airline stewards responsible for a cluster of affected patients. When they locate him, he is shocked that he “may have been passing this around” (138), and chooses to accept that he could have gotten it from someone else.

At the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), Larry and Paul fight over the invitations for an upcoming fundraiser as Paul isn’t comfortable to “send something to people that has the word ‘gay’ on it” (134). Larry wonders what this shame means for the gay community when their members “didn’t even want their mailmen to know they were gay” (135). However, the GMHC’s first benefit raises $52,000, which is an unexpectedly-high amount, especially with the lack of media coverage and the stigma surrounding the disease. Later, on Fire Island, Paul disposes of the ashes of his former lover, Jack Nau, as the first cases of affected victims emerge outside the gay community. 

In San Francisco, Michael Maletta has been suffering for the past two years from a myriad of diseases and doctors do not have an answer. Bill Darrow interviews him, and upon further probing, he discovers Maletta’s brief intimacy with Gaetan and his connections with Nick and Enno, as it turned out they all hung out in New York’s West Village one summer. To Darrow, “[i]t seemed beyond coincidence that a group of people, who had lived in one time and place together, should later pop up with the same diseases after they had [moved] to such diverse parts of the nation” (142). He concludes that this cluster of people must have been exposed to whatever was causing this disease. However, Maletta, unable to remember that particular summer, refers Darrow to a fashion photographer who had also been present.

Darrow finds the photographer in a Los Angeles hospital, and he confirms that during the summer in question, “[w]e did everything together” (142). By his recollection, the summer was 1976, around the time of the Bicentennial: “An international festival to celebrate America’s birthday with ships from fifty-five nations. People had come to New York City from all over the world” (142).

Tim Westmoreland, counsel for Congressman Henry Waxman, leads the first congressional probe on the epidemic. Waxman, in his statement, mentions that the disease “afflicts members of the one of the nation’s most stigmatized and discriminated” (143) and requests funding for research. However, the NCI, also present, offers to release $1 million for KS research, which is “laughable” (144).

In New York City, hospitals do not want to be associated with this “homosexual disease,” especially since previously hospital staff were a “key risk group for hepatitis, and they didn’t want to become a risk group for a deadly, incurable disease” (150).

Don Francis, Max Essex, and Robert Gallo are working on the GRID case almost daily, pulling from their own time. Gallo’s lab at NCI is working on “culturing lymphocytes from a GRID Patient,” and Essex hypothesizes that “GRID was caused by a new infectious agent and suggested it might be a retrovirus similar to feline leukemia” (151). Although the labs are working on it, it’s not full-time, due to lack of resources. Francis worries that more time should be committed.

At the CDC offices in Atlanta, the MMWR publications list the identifiable symptoms in affected patients: “Doctors should be alert for the symptoms, the article concluded, most notably, fatigue, fever, unexplained weight loss, and of course, nightsweats” (152). As fear increases, Dan William worries that the disease is not taken seriously by gay men, who at this rate were set for more “horrors that lay ahead” (153).

In Atlanta, Sandy Ford notifies the CDC of the first hemophiliac GRID case and the CDC calls the disease an epidemic for the first time. Meanwhile, in Denver, blood banks are nervous about CDC representative Dale Lawrence’s visit and what it could mean for their business.

In San Francisco, Bill and Kico decide to separate. He is affected by the break-up and puts his energy into his work. As an aide for Phil Burton, he works on raising funding for AIDS. At the GMHC, they try to create up-to-date information on what it means to have gay cancer. Soon, Haitians become listed as a high-risk group. 

In Paris, Willy Rozenbaum continues to investigate ad-hoc gay patients—a study which has not been approved by the officials at the hospital where he works. They advise him that this is not “a problem decent people became involved with” (169). Shortly after, Rozenbaum chooses to leave his current hospital as the epidemic spreads across eleven European nations.

With new evidence that blood transmissions could be infected, the CDC meets with leaders of the blood industry, hemophiliac groups, gay organizations, and other health officials with the hope that the blood banks will become stricter in their donor referral guidelines. In the end, the conference becomes one that is concerned with being “public-relations oriented” (170). However, the conference succeeds in deciding a name for the disease: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). That gave the epidemic a snappy acronym, AIDS, and was sexually neutral” (171).

In New York City, Bobbi Campbell, Larry Kramer, and Jim Curran have an interview with Dan Rather about the epidemic. Rather remarks “you rarely hear a thing about it” (172). Meanwhile, at the NIH, “a few doctors struggle valiantly with every conceivable medical technology to save the AIDS patients, and they failed” (173). Gallo’s and Goedert's lab at the NCI attempts to give more attention, but they are hindered by the limited resources.

In San Francisco, an eminent trade consultant dies from encephalitis, although his obituary reads “long illness” (178) to hide the fact that he was a homosexual. The baby who receives his blood months ago suffers from infections and other immune deficiencies. A pediatric immunologist observing the child believes the child has AIDS. On the other side of the country, Dr. Arye Rubenstein comes up with the same conclusions.

At the National Lesbian and Gay Leadership Conference, Cleve Jones accepts a donation from Jack Campbell, an owner of a bathhouse. Although AIDS was yet to be recognized as a “venereal disease” prominent gay leaders “showed their keen interest in the epidemic by lavishing donations on AIDS groups” (180).

In Manhattan, Dan Williams’s suggestion to close the bathhouses results in outrage from the gay community, who call him a “monogamist” and say he is inciting an “epidemic of fear” (182). Meanwhile, attempts to meet Mayor Ed Koch are unsuccessful. Larry wants to stage an angry protest. The opening of the GMHC offices “underscored how badly the growing numbers of New York City AIDS sufferers needed city services” (181); the city remained mute on any action.

In San Francisco, Selma Dritz wants Burkitt’s lymphoma to be considered “a form of AIDS” (185), which the CDC is reluctant to include, as they have not heard of cases anywhere else. However, Dritz’s gay community contacts are extensive, and although she doesn’t fight the CDC decision, she keeps her own set of statistics.

Bill Kraus assesses the funding needed for lymphocyte research with Phil Burton for a bill to be passed by Congress. Getting money for AIDS still proves to be a difficult task and “[t]he joke among gay congressional staffers was that NIH stood for Not Interested in Homosexuals” (187).

Harold Jaffe, chief epidemiologist for the AIDS Task Force, meets with Arye Rubenstein and sees that the epidemic has spread to babies, suggesting it could be transferred through blood. Jaffe begins to create an article on AIDS in babies.

In Paris, AIDS researchers and doctors embark on a plan: they are going to search for the absence for T-4 lymphocytes in the blood of AIDS patients.

In San Francisco, Gaetan continues to have sex at the baths and afterward, tells his partners, “Maybe you’ll get it too” (198). Meanwhile, Gary Walsh continues to suffer from infections and a severe bout of salmonella. He confides his fears in his friend and colleague Lu: “These are all symptoms of AIDS” (199).

At the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank, the medical director, Herbert Perkins, meets with Selma Dritz about a donor who insisted he was heterosexual yet died of AIDS complications and infected a baby through his transfusion. To prove that AIDS can spread through blood, Selma tracks the deceased donor’s primary care physician and discovers the donor once had “a case of rectal gonorrhea back in 1990” (200).

At the NCI, Gallo is famous for his past work on the Human T-cell Leukemia virus and garners an award. Curran tries to convince him to work on AIDS and says, “You’ve won one award […] You should come back when you win another award for working on AIDS” (201). Although Gallo appreciates the gesture, he is frustrated with the disease, as his staff “couldn’t keep the lymphocytes alive” (202). In Paris, the Pasteur Institute opens its retrovirus labs for AIDS research. 

In San Francisco, groups protest against Mayor Diane Feinstein for vetoing a bill that would have allowed homosexual relationships to be “granted the same legitimacy as heterosexual relationships” (205). With pressure from religious leaders, she chooses to not “divide our community” (204).

On December 10, the first infected blood transfusion case is about to be announced, but the FDA and blood banks still “needed more proof to believe the threat of AIDS from transfusions” (206). The public announcement garners “an angry reaction” as the CDC’s MMWR newsletter shows not only a transfusion case but gives an “update on five new cases of AIDS in hemophiliacs” (207). On December 13, a second transfusion case is confirmed, and the US Public Health Services calls for a meeting with blood banks and various AIDS risk groups. On December 17, the reports include one titled, “Unexplained Immunodeficiency and Opportunistic Infections in Infants—New York, New Jersey, California,” showing that children of AIDS sufferers could be infected.

In San Francisco, Gary hints to Joe that he has AIDS, which prompts Joe to realize how sick his friend had been. They decide to go to the Everglades in Florida for the New Year, but Gary is too tired to even get out of bed.