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

by Randy Shilts

The gay plague got covered only because it finally had struck people who counted, people who were not homosexuals.

“It isn’t going away,” he said. “Even if we find a causative virus or other agent, it will be considerable time, probably years, before we can develop a vaccine or some strategy to eradicate it. We are in for a long haul.”

What society judged was not the severity of the disease but the social acceptability of the individuals affected with it….

the CDC Task Force sometimes wondered how many cases really existed in the United States, aware that their numbers were months behind anything resembling the reality of the epidemic.