jjaylynny 's review for:

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

5.0

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Devastating and infuriating. All I did while reading this was shake my head in disbelief, anger or sadness. So many unnecessary deaths, so much blame to spread around. I lived this era as a fledgling physician, hearing about a "new disease", then hearing about AIDS on the West Coast, then treating babies and hemophiliacs during my training in a pediatric hospital. I (unforgivably) did not know enough about this shameful backstory in which a nation, its leaders, and its public (including some of the gay community itself) turned its back on their own.