And The Band Played On

Babies of intravenous drug users are showing up to hospitals with symptoms of AIDS. At Arye Rubenstein’s immunology clinic, many babies are abandoned at the hospital and he wishes to create a center that would allow the city to save on burgeoning medical costs and also provide a “semblance of a home” (339). He soon discovers that the government “had every intention of getting through the epidemic spending the least amount of money that was politically possible” (340).

Health Commissioner David Sencer tries to assure that the number of cases was decreasing and AIDS was “not as infectious” (340). However, the reality propels Dr. Mathilde Krim, a cancer researcher, to organize the AIDS Medical Foundation, as “there were no AIDS clinics or wards even on the drawing boards in New York” (341). Krim succeeds in meeting Mayor Koch, who promises to make her the head of his task force on AIDS, but then never gets back to her.

In Miami, an elderly woman becomes the “first incidence of AIDS in the wife of a hemophiliac AIDS sufferer”; her husband had died of Pneumocystis two months prior (343). To ease the concerns over the nation’s blood supply, Secretary Heckler fills out a medical form to demonstrate that the self-deferral program for blood donors is effective and safe.