Film Analysis: And The Band Played On

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“And the Band Played On” is a movie about the epidemiological discovery of AIDS in 1980’s. In the movie, an epidemiologist named Don Francis and his team travel to Central Africa and discovers a community that has been riddled with death due to an unknown illness later identified as the Ebola Fever. Years later, with the effects of the devastating epidemic that he witnessed in Africa still plaguing him, he became aware of the augmented frequency of death among gay men in areas of Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco from a mysterious illness with symptoms such as pneumocystis, and Kaposi’s sarcoma, and decided to investigate it. Thus, his examination of the outbreak ultimately led to the discovery of AIDS. During his discovery, he is met

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