Talk:And the Band Played On

2005

Also, the boook is more focused on the politics and lack of support for the investigators than it is a chronicle of the effect on the gay community. Jliberty 01:58, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Anyone know where the name of the film was originally taken from? Martschink 06:46, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Split?

Because this article deals with both the book and the film, both of which will require separate infoboxes, perhaps the article should be split into two: And the Band Played On and And the Band Played On (film). This will cut down on confusion as well as length. Thoughts? María: (habla ~ cosas) 15:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The film now has a separate article. --BelovedFreak 21:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Weight Given to Gay Community in the Book

I disagree with the assertion that the book does not give the same weight to the gay community as it does politics and medicine. The most drama and the closest we ever see the characters in the book are in the gay community: Bill Kraus, Cleve Jones, Paul Popham, Larry Kramer, and Gary Walsh all have extensive reporting done on them. Not only their roles in the gay community but their frustration within the gay community to get other gays to care, and to get politicians to care as well. I think Randy Shilts did a tremendous job looking at a very difficult and complex topic. The initial reaction to AIDS by *everyone* was awful, including those in the gay community. That the gay community responded first, doesn't necessarily mean that they responded well initially.Moni3 00:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)Moni3

ATBPO As Politically Biased

As Shilts was a gay man who probably knew (without it being medically confirmed) he was HIV positive when writing the book, it most certainly does have a partisan bias to it. However, no group is spared the wrath of Shilts' reporting in light of their apathy, mismanagement, and politicized infighting - even gay groups. This article depicts what Shilts reported in the book and should focus on his points. Rewriting the section on the CDC not to include how messed up their situation was, is a disservice to Shilts and to the neutrality of wikipedia.

Including a link to transcripts from Reagan's should probably be included in the criticism section.

Suggestions solicited

From WP:Books, you can find here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Books#And_the_Band_Played_On —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moni3 (talk • contribs) 20:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

GA review

Hello, I will be reviewing this article to see if it meets the GA criteria. So far this passes the quick fail criteria, so a full review is forthcoming. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on my talk page. Regards, and good luck! FamicomJL (talk) 23:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I look forward to working with you. --Moni3 (talk) 23:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold

1. MoS and prose PASS Looks good, only one thing needs to be fixed.

• "Doctors, of course, were the first to deal with the toll that AIDS would take in the United States." Remove the weasel-ish "of course".

Not sure how that was weaselish, but it's gone.

2. Factual accuracy and verifiability FAIL

• The entire "gay community" section could use some citations and sources. Specifically stuff that will DEFINITELY be challenged.

• The entire "The medical community" section could use some citations and sources.

• The entire "the political and government agencies" section could use some more citations and sources.

This is where I sought some feedback in a peer review because this is unclear to me. These sections report accurately what Shilts wrote about. I did my best to include "Shilts wrote that..." and "Shilts reported that..." instead of leaving these issues POV. The only citations that can be provided for this section are for Shilts' book since the article is about what Shilts wrote, and some of the points take up multiple chapters, so it's quite difficult to cite, for example, every time the CDC fought with itself over funding, or the myriad times doctors and gay activists begged for money for research. How would you suggest this be handled? --Moni3 (talk) 19:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. Just forget that then. FamicomJL (talk) 04:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I went ahead and put some references from the book in anyway, while I was waiting for your response (just in case. Are there objections to the article you still have? --Moni3 (talk) 04:33, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

As of right now, no. The article looks fine. If you are all done, tell me and I will pass the article. FamicomJL (talk) 22:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm done, thank you. And thanks for the review. --Moni3 (talk) 22:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations then, the article has passed for GA candidancy! Great work! FamicomJL (talk) 22:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• The entire middle section of "Gaëtan Dugas as "Patient Zero"" could use some citations and sources.

I've added more sources and citations to this section. --Moni3 (talk) 20:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• "And the Band Played On was used as the basis for a 1993 Emmy-winning HBO movie of the same name," - Could use a citation there.

This has a citation. --Moni3 (talk) 20:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

3. Broadness of coverage PASS Very well done. I can see a lot of research was done. Never knew the title of the book came from the legend about the band in the Titanic.

4. Neutrality PASS Definite pass. No netruality issues here.

5. Stability PASS No edit wars recently, no vandals recently, very stable article.

6. Images PASS Both images have their proper fair use rationale.

7. Due to the fact that finding the proper citations for the above should not be too hard, I am placing this article on hold. You have seven days or so to fix the above issues, or else the article gets failed. Please send me a message on my talkpage when/if you fix these, or have any questions at all. Regards, and good luck! FamicomJL (talk) 18:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Patient Zero

I removed the statement that And th Band Played On did not identify Gaetan Dugas as patient Zero. Shilts does make that identification on page 147 of the paperback edition copyright 1988 4th printing "Gaetan Dugas, marked on the chart as Patient Zero"

What's more, the index entry for "Patient Zero" redirects to "Dugas, Gaetan." I reorganized this section a bit, mostly to separate the book content and rumors about it. I added the quote from the book (which I believe falls under the "fair use" doctrine) Uranographer (talk) 05:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Uranographer. I contributed to the majority of this article and got it to GA status. I'm toying with the idea of putting it up for FA at some point and your contributions are serendipitous I think. I think Gaetan Dugas' section is relevant but weak, primarily due to my lack of understanding of the finer issues of epidemiology. Though I think the section can be strengthened, your rewrite added uncited claims that were not neutral. I think we can rewrite them and cite them to make them more neutral, but that should be done here. Also, per WP:MOS, blockquotes are for really long quotes - a good guideline is 4 lines or more. I hope we can work together. --Moni3 (talk) 12:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Moni3. I'm not offended; thanks for asking. I did forget to add a reference to the first documented AIDS cases in the U.S. (not being to Dugas). Actually, the AIDS origin Wikipedia page has a nice discussion of that. Also, the bit about Dugas's "recalcitrance" is on p. 439, in my paperback version. Other than that, what is uncited? I have to say, though, I'm a little surprised you describe my edits as not neutral: I made those changes because I thought what was currently there was not neutral. I read this book quite carefully from cover to cover, and I didn't get the impression that Dugas was blamed for bringing AIDS to North America. Frankly, I wonder if some of the authors of this article actually read the book.

In any case, this section emphasizes what people have inferred from the book over what Shilts actually wrote. To my mind, there are four separate issues: what Shilts wrote, the accuracy of what he wrote, what has been inferred from the book, and what people have inferred about Shilts himself from his writing. As it stands, these are not well separated. There has been a lot of confusion about the role Dugas played in spreading AIDS and I daresay Shilts does imply that Dugas was more responsible for its spread than he actually was. However, Shilts refers to Dugas as "Patient Zero" (or the "Orange County Connection") only in the context of Darrow's cluster study, and states unequivocally that whether Dugas was responsible for bringing it to North America "remains a question of debate and is ultimately unanswerable." As it stands, I don't think the article makes that clear.

Also, in my experience, block quotes are sometimes used for emphasis. I think the importance of the quote I added (as a clarification to Shilts position) justifies it being set as a block quote even though it has only three lines. But the Style Guide doesn't mention that use for a block quote, so perhaps it is not appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uranographer (talk • contribs) 08:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Duagas' paragraph now states that while Shilts did not accuse him of bringing HIV to North America, St. Martin's Press attached publicity to the book that did claim Dugas brought it, and at least one reference to the book took the liberties to put their own clues together to infer that he did the same. I included that information from research I found. I think Shilts' quote is a good one to include, actually.

It's true that blockquotes are used for emphasis, but when used for smaller quotes, they're used incorrectly. We're I to bring it to FA, I'd be asked to change it immediately. However, it is possible to put Shilts' words in a quote box, which I can do.

Ideally, I'd like to get hold of the article from Andrew Ross from the Journal of Epidemiology that discusses Shilts' misinterpretation of the data. I don't know if I would be able to understand it, but that will be the hinge for this paragraph.

Since I'm the primary author of this article, what parts did you think were inaccurately described? Issues I thought would be most contentious I provided page numbers for. Thanks. --Moni3 (talk) 13:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, let me summarize what bothers me about this section.

• "The book includes extensive discussion of Gaetan Dugas". I never thought the discussion was "extensive." Only a few paragraphs are devoted to discussing Dugas; most of the other references to him are brief and fleeting.

• "Dugas was labeled the "Patient Zero" of AIDS" seems ambiguous. By whom is he "labeled?" Shilts only reports (incorrectly) that Dugas is so labeled in the cluster study; he does not personally apply the label.

• "meaning he was responsible for spreading it across the US and Canada" I believe is factually incorrect. I'm not trained in epidemiology, but from what I have read "Patient Zero" is not a well-defined term. Regardless, Shilts does not give this meaning of "Patient Zero" anywhere in the book, and to my mind never implies it either. (Also the punctuation in this sentence is strange, is the bit "after he was told of his ability to infect others" part of the "meaning" of Patient Zero?)

• "At least one reference to the book takes liberties to assume Dugas brought the virus from Africa to North America" Isn't that assumption a single liberty?

• "which Shilts never stated in the book, instead writing..." has a tense mismatch, and strikes me as a run-on sentence.

• "However, a press release by St. Martin's Press did make that connection in its title, but not its text." I've lost the antecedents to the pronouns: is it the title and text of the press release, or those of the book?

• "Shilts assumed that Dugas was the original source of the infection among gay men in North America." I haven't read that reference, but I have to wonder if the author really has some extra information about what Shilts assumed, or is merely echoing the inferrence of others.

• The part about Darrow using "Patient O" rather than "Patient Zero" strikes me as quite important, because it refutes a genuine factual error in the book. Shouldn't that be placed more prominently, or at least moved from its current position of being surrounded by reviewer comments?

• "Ross wrote in a letter to the editor...although stating that" has a tense problem.

• "A book review by Science magazine..." is misleading: the review appeared in Science magazine, but according to the byline in the reference, someone named Sandra Panem is the author.

• Finally, the last two sentences quote an inflamatory personal attack on Shilts and seems to solidify the general tone of the section as an indictment rather than a neutral account. I have to say I personally would refute this attack. The central theme in this book is that pretty much everyone, from the bathhouse patrons' intransigence in closing the baths to the Reagan administration, shares some measure of culpability in the spread of AIDS. Shilts does not offer anyone as a "scapegoat." Crimp's remarks may actually refer to Shilts' original reporting on which the book is based (of which I am unfamiliar) but if that is the case, does it belong in this article?

Anyway, these are some of my opinions. I don't want to step on your toes, so to speak, by imposing edits in the article. So do with them as you see fit. Uranographer (talk) 06:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't own the article, but I do my best to make sure what's added adheres to the standards of a GA. Your points are valid, and I'll do my best to address them at some point today. As I said before, this is probably the weakest part of the article - and one I didn't originally author - although I added some cited material to it. I know it needs to be cleaned up. --Moni3 (talk) 13:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I don't suppose there is any hurry though. On another subject, do you suppose it's worth mentioning where the title came from? Uranographer (talk) 10:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Moni3 asked me for help, so I read the sources in question. I agree with many of Uranographer's criticisms. I'm not sure what help I can provide (it sounds like there are many willing authors of this section :-) but a couple of further points:

• "Darrow had not reached this conclusion at the time he had published his first report on the cluster of puzzling infections." This claim is not supported by the source (Moss 1988).
• "Darrow later concluded that the study had been flawed when Andrew Ross pointed out the mistakes in his methodology in an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology." This claim is also not supported by the source (Moss 1988). The paper Moss (not Ross) wrote (Moss AR, Osmond D, Bacchetti P, Chermann JC, Barre-Sinoussi F, Carlson J (1987). "Risk factors for AIDS and HIV seropositivity in homosexual men". Am J Epidemiol. 125 (6): 1035–47. PMID 3646828.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)) does not mention Darrow's paper at all, and Moss's 1988 letter doesn't say that it does.
• "Ross wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times" The letter was not to the NYT.
• "although stating that Shilts' representation of Dugas was otherwise accurate." Moss does not say that. He says only that Shilts "does not overstress Mr. Dugas' role. (But he does identify Dugas, and does not cite the Auerbach and Darrow paper.)"
• 'his "glib", "gossipy", and "sensationalist" treatment of the science involved in the epidemic' The review applies only the adjective "glib" to Shilts' treatment of the science involved.

Wow, there are a lot of problems with that section! Anyway, hope this info helps. I fixed some of the problems with this edit, but clearly more work is needed. Eubulides (talk) 08:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Don Francis

Obviously the CDC staffer is one of the main characters in the book, but no mention or link except to say he was portrayed in the film--Mongreilf (talk) 11:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

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I don’t think so.

Shilts' book has been used as a standard by the lay press when reviewing books chronicling subsequent medical crises including breast cancer,[48] chronic fatigue syndrome,[49] Agent Orange,[50] and continued response to AIDS. This isn’t true, and reads like an opinion. The citations don’t prove anything. 2601:483:101:86B5:81C9:99B9:F3FC:E303 (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Poor, vague writing about a potentially important incident

The article currently contains this gobbledygook:

As a scientific necessity to compare it to the American version of HIV, French doctors representing the Pasteur Institute sent a colleague to the National Cancer Institute, where Robert Gallo was also working on the virus. The colleague switched the samples, Shilts reported, because of a grudge he had against the Pasteur Institute.[18] Instead of Gallo comparing his samples with the French samples, he found the very same retrovirus as the French sample, putting back any new results in AIDS research for at least a year.[19]

This is poorly written nonsense. It raises a number of questions:

• Was the "colleague" a member of the Pasteur Institute? Why would he have a grudge against his own institute? Why would the Pasteur doctors trust someone who has a grudge against the institute (one strong enough to set back AIDS research) to bring the precious sample to America?
• Or does the "he" in "grudge he had" refer to Gallo?
• Gallo wanted to look at the French sample to compare it with the American one, so the French sent him the sample but someone intentionally mixed it up, then Gallo found the same retrovirus as in the French sample (wasn't this what he was trying to do in the first place?) which somehow set back "any new results in AIDS research" for a year? There was nothing published on AIDS for that entire year? This sentence makes absolutely no sense at all.

This is dreadful. Can someone who owns this book do a proper retelling of this? Bueller 007 (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2020 (UTC)