![]() These were what he documented in And the Band Played On, backed up by extensive research, hundreds of interviews and, of course, his own personal experience. That, undoubtedly, gave him a grandstand seat from which to witness the political, personal and medical machinations that accompanied the emergence of AIDS. Shilts had the benefit – if that is the right word – of having been the San Francisco Chronicle’s AIDS correspondent, pretty much from the start of the crisis. It was also the year that he received his own AIDS diagnosis. Shilts’ book was published in 1987 six years after the first AIDS diagnosis in the USA and the same year that the first AIDS ‘treatments’ – Zidovudine (AZT) – were made available. It is an extraordinary political and historical document not just because of the breadth of its coverage but also because of its timing. And the Band Played On is Randy Shilts’ epic (600+ pages) documentation of the early days of the AIDS crisis. ![]()
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