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They also served as advocates for these communities.Ģ.National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) involvement in AIDS
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These community-based AIDS service organizations were founded to support and care for people with AIDS primarily because of homophobia and distrust of the government and public health agencies as well as the slowness of these agencies to respond to what was seen as a crisis from within the affected community. With mainstream medical, social and human services organizations so fearful and reluctant to provide care and support services to people living with HIV and AIDS, the communities most impacted created organizations to take care of their own members. There continued to be widespread fear and hostility to people with AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS which drove the political and social responses to this disease. Along with an initially high mortality, it was characterized by homophobia, discrimination, and stigma against those diagnosed with the disease. The initial name for this disease was GRID-gay-related immunologic syndrome. While this changed and broadened over time, AIDS’ initial impact on marginalized communities was accompanied by a highly negative public response. The primary communities affected by what would become known as the AIDS pandemic were gay white men and Haitians. These projects have improved awareness and use of national HIV/AIDS information resources enhanced information seeking skills developed locally generated information resources and enhanced the capacity of community-based organizations to use new information and computer technologies providing access to essential information resources and services. Uniquely funded and long running, more than 300 ACIOP projects have been supported to-date. Conference recommendations led to a key NLM policy change providing cost-free access to all AIDS data, and the establishment of the HIV/AIDS community information outreach program (ACIOP), which enabled new partnerships with local community-based organizations serving the affected community. Lindberg M.D., and staff sought to identify new program possibilities benefitting from the input of current and potential users of the Library’s information services. In June 1993, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) joined with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Office of AIDS Research (OAR), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to host a conference at a pivotal time in the HIV/AIDS epidemic to understand better the information needs of five major constituency groups: clinical researchers clinical providers news media and the public patients and the affected community.