The AIDS Education Global Information System (AEGIS) is the world's largest Database of AIDS information. It was originally started as a small electronic bulletin board system (BBS) by Orange County resident Jamie Jemison in 1986. Sister Mary Elizabeth Clark, a transgender pioneer, and US Navy/US Army veteran took it over in 1990, inspired by meeting an isolated young man with AIDS in rural Missouri. Under her direction and tireless effort, the database grew mightily and is now a key reference point for both popular and scientific information on AIDS. In 1996, AEGiS was reorganized as a 501c(3) not-for-profit organization and has been a leading on-line HIV/AIDS educator, logging millions of page views each year.
The AEGIS web site contains scientific abstracts from local, regional and international AIDS conferences, related news, reports, and journal articles, all compiled into a fully indexed, cross-referenced and keyword searchable database.
Extensive HIV/AIDS History
Many accounts of the earliest days of the epidemic are found within the database. Among AEGiS' unique collection is a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report entitled, Pneumocystis Pneumonia - Los Angeles, that dates back to June 5, 1981. This was the first document to depict the human immunodeficiency virus, well before the disease even had a name. In some cases, these dated publications are only available through our archive. Because hindsight is often wiser than foresight, AEGiS makes documents such as these accessible to show how the world reacted to this disease, what happened and when.
AEGIS is funded by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, The US National Library of Medicine's (NLM) HIV/AIDS Community Information Outreach Program, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and the Pacific Life Foundation and by AEGiS visitors.
AEGIS was nominated to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) "Memory of the World" programme in 1999, based on its comprehensive coverage of the global AIDS pandemic.
AEGIS subscribes to the Health On The Net Foundation code of ethics (HONcode), and it has been in continuous compliance since January 2001.
Famous quotes containing the words aids, education, global, information and/or system:
“The issue is a mighty one for all people and all time; and whoever aids the right, will be appreciated and remembered.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“A President must call on many persons—some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“However global I strove to become in my thinking over the past twenty years, my sons kept me rooted to an utterly pedestrian view, intimately involved with the most inspiring and fractious passages in human development. However unconsciously by now, motherhood informs every thought I have, influencing everything I do. More than any other part of my life, being a mother taught me what it means to be human.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by the electric media—movies, Telstar, flight—far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world’s a sage.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the so—called educational system, which is nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon one’s ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the “educational system” are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)