Shilts, an investigative journalist, chronicled the discovery and spread of HIV / AIDS with special emphasis on government indifference and political infighting—specifically in the United States—to what was then perceived as a gay disease. Shilts' premise was that the AIDS epidemic was allowed to happen, and incompetence and apathy toward those who were initially affected by AIDS allowed the spread of the disease to become much worse than it might have been. Shilts died of complications from AIDS in 1994.

In 1993 Shilts's book became the subject of an American television docudrama, also entitled And the Band Played On, directed by Roger Spottiswood, and starring Matthew Modine, Alan Alda, Ian McKellen, Lily Tomlin, and  Richard Gere.