And The Band Played On Analysis

The movie, And the Band Played On, illustrates the beginning of the AIDS virus and how it unexpectedly spread across the world. It used the Ebola disease to indicate that there will be another severe disease surfacing. The world was not prepared to handle such a transmissible disease. Doctors globally presumed that the first cases of the HIV virus to be just a deformity of a specific disease. Their negligence of this issue was the beginning of the spread of this AIDS. Throughout the movie, it shows various points, such as the start of HIV, the misunderstandings it gave, and the fear it stimulated amongst doctors and everyone else.

Fears and misconceptions regarding AIDS began when only the homosexual community contracted it. Therefore, people started to believe that only the homosexuals would get the AIDS and blamed them for the cause of the disease. The public was not in fear until some people who were not homosexuals contracted the disease. It was at this time, that the public’s attitude shifted into the fear that anyone was able to have AIDS; it was a sexually transmitted disease. Many were also deceived by the government’s actions. For example, one woman in the movie began to become sick after a blood transfusion. She always thought that it was due to surgical problems, but actually she had contracted AIDS and the doctors knew but didn’t do anything about it. This also caused panic because, even though the government knew AIDS was spreading around they did not do anything about it.

AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is related to HIV, but they are not one in the same. A person has AIDS only in the final stages of HIV, after the immune system becomes unable to defend itself against foreign bacteria, other viruses, and fungi, and allows for the development of certain cancers. The world first became aware of AIDS in the early 1980s. Growing numbers of gay men in New York and California were developing rare types of pneumonia and cancer, and a wasting disease was spreading in Uganda. Doctors reported AIDS symptoms under different names, including “gay-related immune deficiency” and “slim,” but by 1985, they reported them all over the world.

In the Radio Lab the Authors illustrates how HIV is spreading in United States and how the starting point begins as Patient Zero. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich along with Carl Zimmer and David Quammen discuss how in 1981 a mysterious syndrome it became in a pandemic among homosexual people in important cities such as Los Angeles Ney York and San Francisco. Young men were dying in inexplicable conditions that the CDC had to intervene with a several researches, surveys and studies about those cases. During the research noticed that one man were most related with more cases, this person was Gaetan Dugas, a Canadian young men, who travel to US. As he knew he was going to die, he stared to spread the disease for something he called a “gay cancer”.

The AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, consisted entirely of deaths, illnesses and most of all fear, changing the way society viewed gay men. Being that it was only happening to homosexuals and everyone became super homophobic and believed that the disease was a cause of being gay until it started happening to women too. This affected the entire medical metaphysics in society on what is considered safe methods of having sex and health precautions as well. Before the 1980s hit HIV was thought to originate form Kinshasa which is in Congo. In the 1920 HIV crossed between chimpanzees to humans on the Democratic Republic of humans.(Avert 1). AIDS is caused by HIV and is the last stage of HIV and can lead to death. It attacks every single

Aids is a disease that is increasing rapidly. Even though there is more efficient technology today

AIDS or acquired immune deficiency syndrome is a disease where a person regardless of race or gender can get infected and have no chance of survival. AIDS started in the 1980’s to move from human to human. In a event were sex kills this is the one. In 1995, AIDS was the leading cause of death for adults 25 to 44 years old. But in recent years treatments help the survival and prolonged life of many with AIDS yet the disease still resides within them and they are dangerous to the well being of

According to a report published in the February 1998 edition of “Nature”, scientists identified what they believe is the earliest case of AIDs in a man from the Congo in 1959. (Lerner and Hombs 39) By the end of the year 1980, 80 men would have been diagnosed with at least of the opportunistic infections that are a characteristic of AIDs. (Lerner and Hombs 40) AIDs cases in the 1980s increased dramatically not only around the world but in the United States, primarily in larger cities like Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. The numbers of AIDs diagnoses and deaths spiraled out of control throughout the 1980s and towards the end of 1989 there were 117,500 cases of AIDS reported and 89,000 related deaths.(Lerner and Hombs 54) In the

In the 1980s, a mysterious disease began to take the lives of Americans. With the cause unknown, a fear grew among Americans. An unusually high rate of people was becoming sick with strange and rare diseases. When experimental treatments failed to work, people died. This mysterious disease is what we now know as HIV–Human Immunodeficiency Virus. In the past thirty-five years, the HIV has taken many turns in history. Although we do not hear about HIV and AIDS now, it is still a prevalent issue in the United States and in the world.

Chapter 4 of the Nagami book dealt with AIDS and how it became a common infection in the population. In the book Dr. Nagami explained how mysterious the origin of the disease was in the beginning of the outbreak. There were various explanation for the origins. It was believed that amyl nitrate “poppers” could be a cause for the disease since homosexual men were known to use them before sex. It appeared predominately in the gay population at the time. Eventually it appeared in the intravenous drug using population, Haitians, people who underwent transfusions and eventually the heterosexual population. This unknown source of the disease was what caused fear in the early stages of the disease. Dr. Nagami explained how this caused fear even in the medical profession as some doctors moved away from treating HIV patients. Dr. Nagami herself changed her behavior being reluctant to shake hands with AIDS patients.

The Black Death took place most nations of the world, and conduced to the most tragic circumstance in mankind. In14th century, the Chinese population decreased 120 million to 80 million. Not only China, but also In London population was 1,000,000 during 1347’s, and it dropped off to 37,000 by the 1353’s (Tignor). In contrast, epidemic AIDS also terrifying disease that is taking over the world gradually, even though modern medical treatment continuing their effort to prevent it. As same as Black Death, AIDS is also causing a staggering loss of life. Around 12 million people have died all over the world since the first cases were reported in 1981(Tignor). Also, 1.5 million people died of AIDS-related causes in 2013. In 2011, the Caribbean became infected with HIV, and around 10,000 died of AIDS. In 2012, in the United States, about 13,712 people died from AIDS. Not only that, but also AIDS expanded towards Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where 92,000 died from AIDS in

In order to fully understand the AIDS epidemic in the U.S., we must consider the following determinants of health: biological, psychological, and sociological factors. These three factors had determined the spread of the disease in the late twentieth century, and they still affect the global distribution of AIDS today. In the documentary-film And the Band Played On (1993), director Roger Spottiswoode effectively showcased all three factors. The film is a chronological story of the AIDS epidemic from the 1980s. The story of the epidemic garners attention when gay men in both the west and east coast of the U.S. develop this mysterious disease in large numbers. Scientists at the Center for Disease Control and private labs fiercely work toward understanding the disease and trying to come up with a solution. The film is an epidemiological story, where the viewer sees prominent diagnoses, scientific discovery, political turnovers, psychological turmoil, and societal revolutions as developments in unraveling the AIDS mystery. The viewer is shown the journey involved in discovering the biological basis for the disease, the psychological effects due to the epidemic, political and societal conditions during the time period, and the overall implications of the epidemic.

The film And the Band Played On shows the drastic increase of Aids most especially among the gay community which poses many questions. The purpose of the film’s research is to conduct studies in order to note the cause and the spread of the disease in the western developed countries (‘Plot Summary’, 2015). The primary research questions evidently presented in the film And the Band Played On, involve; what causes Aids in the society? How the disease is transmitted from one person to another?

The film And the Band Played On illustrates the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. In 1981, Dr. Don Francis notices an increase in deaths due to an illness among gay men in cities. As the number of deaths rapidly grows, Dr. Francis is forced to do his work with little money and outdated equipment as he tries to find possible causes of this rapidly spreading disease. Doctors, the Center for Disease Control, and citizens try to figure out if the disease is spread sexually, through blood or bodily secretions. The film And the Band Played On shows the reaction from the government, the Center for Disease Control, and normal citizens of the United States when this mysterious disease emerges. For example, in 1985 hysteria broke out across Queens when the New York City Board of Education announced that children with AIDS could attend public schools with healthy children. Parents protested against this in fears their children may contract this deadly disease with no known cause. Parents believed that their parental instinct and community control should trump what little known information about the disease that the NYC Board of Education was using. This event is described in Jennifer Brier’s article “‘Save Our Kids, Keep AIDS Out’: Anti-AIDS Activism and the Legacy of Community Control in Queens, New York”. At the end of this article and the film, citizens gain a better understanding for this disease and how it is transmitted. As hysteria broke out in Districts 27 and 29 of Queens, parents

“The Age of AIDS” by frontline is an apt study for two reasons. First it details the process of identifying a disease which was new and mysterious; second in doing so it gives us insight on how epidemiology plays an important role. This gives us an understanding of epidemiology and its basic concepts in force while executing this role. The objectives of epidemiology of identifying the cause of disease, in this case AIDS, extent to which it has penetrated. Finding records for similar cases for further investigation which would help in finding the origins of the disease. Evaluating preventive and therapeutic measures, in this case the drug “AZT” was monitored and after sometime was found ineffective, because the HIV virus had formed immunity