#LGBTVoices Celebrates Pride
LGBT+ REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA

Today: And The Band Played On

A book by journalist Randy Shilts, adapted into a movie about the rise of AIDS in the 1980s & the part politics, bureaucracy & homophobia played in the failed response to the crisis.
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The movie And the Band Played On was made in 1993 & told through protagonist Don Francis — an epidemiologist with the CDC who worked on the frontlines of the Ebola outbreak in 1976.

In 1981, Francis became aware of a growing number of deaths in gay men in LA, NY & SFO.
#Pride

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The movie And the Band Played On (1993), is told through protagonist Don Francis played by @MatthewModine an epidemiologist w/the CDC who worked on the frontlines of the Ebola outbreak.

In 1981, Francis becomes aware of a growing number of deaths in gay men in LA, NY & SFO.

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In the conservative 1980s, AIDS was dismissed as the "gay plague” or the “gay cancer.”

The US government initially did nothing and was excruciatingly slow to react.

With a near 100% mortality rate, men were dying horrible deaths and essentially abandoned by our government.

Jun 1981
A NY dermatologist noted a cluster of men suffering from an aggressive skin cancer
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A govt epidemiological report 5 men had been diagnosed w/a rare lung infection in LA.

A strange “Cancer” marked the infected men w/purple lesions & death was by a strange new pneumonia.

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A year later, researchers had made "the first connection between a potential sexually transmitted agent" in ill patients & it was finally named—AIDS.

It had been called GRID–Gay Related Immune Disease, which stigmatized it even further & turned the public against the disease.

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There were no tests & no treatment for years— until it was no longer a gay disease.

3 years later, 12,500 people were dead from AIDS & 13 y/o Ryan White, a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS following a blood transfusion, was banned from school in Indiana.

#Pride
#LGBTVoices

The Reagan admin publicly opposed policies "promoting or encouraging, directly or indirectly, homosexual activities” & blocked Congress & health officials from educating the US about AIDS.

Reagan wouldn’t even say the word AIDS—Trump calls #COVID19 the “Wuhan Virus” & “Kung Flu”

Misinformation, division, bigotry, fear, & panic outlined AIIDS’ early days.

It wasn’t until the wealthy, blood transfusion patients, children & infants contracted the disease, that AIDS gained the serious attn & treatment it needed from the start.

Both the book & movie incorrectly depicts a promiscuous gay man as“Patient Zero“ named Gaëtan Dugas, who was wrongly blamed for bringing AIDS to the US.
This has been proven false thru genetic studies of the virus—AIDS showed up in the US in the 1970s

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/america-hiv-outbreak-origins-nyc-gaetan-dugas

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The bureaucracy by both the medical community and US government failed to enact testing the US blood supply for years despite 89% of those who received tainted blood, would contract AIDS.

#Pride
#LGBTVoices

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After blood screening was finally enacted, LGBT+ were banned for decades from donating blood.
This was only lifted 3 months ago due to severe shortages due to #COVID19

Now LGBT+ aren’t being allowed to donate #COVID19 antibodies after recovery. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/25/dillon-barron-gay-doctor-chicago-coronavirus-covid-19-plasma-blood-donation/

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Dr. Fauci who focused on HIV & AIDS for much of his career, said disproportionate death rates due to #COVID19 among African Americans in the current pandemic reminded him of stigma against the gay community during the early days of HIV & AIDS.
#Pride https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-04-29/hiv-and-the-coronavirus-pandemic-carries-echoes-of-early-aids-crisis

With the emergence of #COVID19, face masks are the new wear a condom from the 80’s.

It took a massive effort to educate the public on wearing condoms bc they carried a stigma of disease.

Their use only increased after Stilt’s book& the surgeon general’s report came out in 1987.

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HIV & AIDS contamination occurs through bodily fluids: blood, semen, vaginal fluids & breast milk. It’s not airborne.
It‘s spread through unprotected sex, shared needles or tainted blood.

In addition to the above—COVID19 is spread through air particulates & surface contact

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The common similarity with both AIDS & #COVID19 is an initial lack of decisive, effective leadership from the White House. Both responses were abysmal and deadly.

#Pride
#LGBTVoices https://twitter.com/capaction/status/1240321663901863952?s=21

40 years later, there’s still 38 million people in the world infected with HIV & AIDS, & 1 million will die of AIDS related illnesses each year.
There’s no vaccine—only drug therapies such as PrEP.

We’re over 2.5 Million cases & 127,000 deaths of #COVID19 in the US in just 6 mos

Said 40 yrs ago about AIDS—not COVID:

A new contagion sweeping thru a nation
Loved ones dying of a virus in isolation
Denial & indifference in WA DC despite alarmed health experts as the death toll rises
Division & misinformation eclipse science & reason https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/gay-and-lesbian-well-being/202003/comparing-covid-19-and-aids-gay-male-perspective

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#Pride
#LGBTVoices

And the Band Played On‘s late author Randy Shilts, who was the 1 of the 1st openly gay journalists, wrote these words in 1989, but they’re devastatingly prophetic to the Trump admin’s criminally inadequate response to the #COVID19 pandemic today:

#LGBTVoices is celebrating the end of #Pride with threads on LGBT+ visibility and impact in media every day this week.

Check out our hashtag for daily tweets. Join in the discussion and RT to spread the word.
Check out previous tweets below.

Fin/ https://twitter.com/i/events/1275012552917950472