David France (1) (1959–)

The main point I'm taking away from this book is that the biggest killer during the AIDS epidemic was indifference. This book tracks the relentless activism of New York groups, mainly ACT UP and related enterprises. Their passionate advocacy during the crisis was more often met with cold indifference than outright homophobia or bigotry.

France goes to great lengths to illustrate the differences between the worlds occupied by east village gay activists, doctors, researchers, politicians, and show more the "general public." I can only imagine how alien news of the epidemic must have appeared to most of the country... a blip on their radar, a city phenomenon, then suddenly a gay terror.

PWAs themselves had no choice but to dive headlong into the science and politics of viruses and drugs. They had to become experts--and make unbelievable amounts of hay--to get a seat at the table. Nothing was given to them. They had to forcibly take everything they got. If you needed to be reminded that the people and organizations that have the most power to sustain or destroy life in our society--the government, corporations--care frighteningly little about the health and safety of most people, read this book. It seems at every turn that empathy had to be wrung out of these inflexible institutions like water from a rag.

And this book also makes clear that most of the roadblocks to AIDS research arose for remarkably arbitrary and/or petty reasons. Robert Gallo's insistence on claiming that he discovered HIV is a perfect example. He was only able to do so because he had the American medical establishment at his back. He has blood on his hands. Another example is the "gang of five" researchers at ACTG who refused to study anything but AZT despite it's limited efficacy. They were being paid by AZTs manufacturer for their service. The list goes on, sickeningly long.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about this book, beyond the unimaginable devastation wrought by the plague, is that meaningful institutional change to the way pharma responds to epidemics doesn't seem to have happened. We know about the cruelty and depravity of drug companies and the politicians who support them. The surprising (yet still greatly limited) compassion shown by these companies during the AIDS crisis should be chalked up as a remarkable achievement of the activists, moreso than one of the companies themselves. What happens when the next plague is profitable, and there isn't anyone around to act up? How will drugs get into bodies? How many more will die? show less

Today, it’s easy to forget the days when an HIV diagnosis implied a death sentence within 24 months. Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On tells the story of how the AIDS pandemic played out in the epicenter of San Francisco, and David France, in this book, tells how it played out in the other American epicenter of New York City. He tells how activists and scientists sometimes fought and sometimes collaborated to find how triple-drug therapy (nicknamed HAART) made an HIV diagnosis to show more become a livable condition. He also shared how modern biomedical research has learned how to help all impacted parties collaborate early and often.

HIV continues to have many angles and dimensions to it, so each book can only limit itself to one perspective. France’s perspective is from New York City and heavily involved in the activist community. The disease affected him personally, so he is not a disinterested observer. This well-researched book explicitly tells his personal tale of fear and loss alongside that of other activists. Indeed, such anecdotes only empower this book’s account more.

A philosopher and poet by nature, I love heavy books, but this book was, at times, heavy even for me. I could only read so much in one sitting. At 600+ pages, it requires some time to work through and to digest. However, after all that hard, somber work, the joy conveyed in the ending when treatment was found – well, it brought a tear to my eye and a leap to my heart. France does a good job of relating what it was like to suddenly hear that instead of your community facing an inevitable death sentence, it has found new life.

Personally, I’m engaged in HIV advocacy in HIV vaccine trials. I’m deeply saddened by the devastating federal cuts to research and treatment, especially for sub-Saharan Africa. Books like this help us to remember what it was like when HIV was untamed. It also reminds us that when other infectious diseases cause pandemics, overdramatized reactions are normal in pandemics, regardless of political affiliation. This book acquired an audience in the LGBTQ+ community, but it deserves a much wider audience, which it seems to have received. Like any pandemic, HIV should have always been a human rights issue bound up in love of one’s neighbors. The tragic reality, covered here, needs to instruct us to react better next time. show less

David France's book, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS isn't a carefully balanced account of the work done to find ways to treat AIDS. It also isn't balanced geographically or emotionally. David France moved to New York city in the early eighties, looking for a place where he would find acceptance and be allowed to be himself. Instead, he entered the epicenter of a horrific epidemic at its beginning and remained through to its ending. So while show more How to Survive a Plague tries to be balanced and journalistic in its approach, the real human feelings, along with the chaos and frantic need to find any source of hope shines through this account of the New York gay community during the AIDS crisis.

Going through the crisis chronologically, the story is told with all of the physical and emotional turmoil intact. As people struggled, even to find out what was going on, what this new disease was, as the government and American society reacted with a callous disregard at best, and an unseemly schadenfreude at worst, the men at the center were frightened for both themselves and their loved ones. Out of that, rose groups willing to do what they could to find answers, to care for the afflicted and to find ways of compelling the NIH and pharmaceutical companies to get anything that might help to market. And these groups were often at loggerheads with each other, with one group fighting for one thing and another fighting with equal fervor for the opposite. France does a good job of reflecting those conflicts in his writing and his own experiences during this time are recounted along with those of the other members of New York's gay community.

I learned a huge amount from this book. And while it's length is daunting, and arguments could be made for tightening up the story, the way it was written, with each meeting of each group detailed, along with the inter-personal conflicts and resolutions carefully recounted, that very approach deepened my immersion in the subject. And while the focus stays fixed on the fight for a cure, and how that was achieved, what remains in my mind are the heart-breaking and utterly common stories that France includes like the one of one partner last seeing his longtime life companion at the doors of the emergency room, as hospitals routinely barred entry to the partners of people with AIDS. show less

I was there. I worked for the National Association of People with AIDS as their development director from 92 to 97 then again in 2000. Previously I'd worked at The Human Rights Campaign Fund (now HRC). And the Band Played On was an excellent history of AIDS, activism and the federal gov. lack of response during the 80's.

How to Survive a Plague brought it all back to me. The ACT-UP demos, the kiss in at the American Family Association on Vermont Ave, in Wash. DC. Countless deaths in my show more office, and in my personal life. So many gone.

The author did an outstanding job of documenting the lives of the activists, (the majority of whom are dead now), the doctors, and the federal government's response up to the present day. An enormous undertaking. He's done the movement justice. show less