Band Played On

“And the Band Played on” (1993) shows the early stages of the Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in the United States. The movie starts in a village on the banks of the Ebola River in Zaire where Dr. Don Francis, an idealistic epidemiologist, discovers the residents dead due to an illness later determined as Ebola hemorrhagic fever. He is then hunted by the images of mass deaths when he joins in the research on AIDS.
Personal interests between the doctors of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the homosexuals (or gays) clash, especially when Dr. Francis suggests to close the bath houses in trying to prevent the further spreading of the virus. It is also shown when disclosing personal information about sexual activities
They believe that they are hindered from being sexual individuals.

Politicians want to know a definitive or scientific proof before taking actions. The CDC, however, only supplies what they “think” and what they “believe to know”. If the government does something based on these insubstantial assumptions and later realizes that these assumptions are wrong, then various things are lost such as resources and time.
One of the ethical issues or concerns depicted in the film is when the head of the French hospital complains to Dr. Rosenbaum about having AIDS patients. He stresses that “normal” patients are scared of going to “the hospital where those people (AIDS patients) go” putting them in a difficult case. It is viewed that the head sees the patients as burdens rather than what they really are – patients who are in need of medical attention. Another case is the blood suppliers’ unwillingness to test their blood supply using an expensive hepatitis B surrogate test thinking it would incur more costs than