Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, March 14, 1997
Michael Dougan of the Examiner Staff
"We just got a kudo from Italy," Nicole Mandel, managing editor of the site (hivinsite.ucsf.edu) said Thursday.
She said the site, launched Monday and supported by UCSF's AIDS Program and the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, may be the only HIV-related site in the country that is actually written and managed by top researchers in the field.
Dr. Paul Volberding, director of the university's AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital, said the primary audience for the site will be professionals in the medical, social and behavioral fields.
But, he added, "we know that patients will be looking at this as well."
Among the site's features are sections on medical information, prevention, education and social issues. It also includes a state-by-state list of AIDS-related resources and research projects.
Mandel said the site's seven full-time staff members would contact more than 500 research programs once a month to ensure information is current.
"It's extremely labor-intensive, but that's the only way to have a product you can stand by," she said.
Unlike some HIV Web sites, this one will not feature "chat rooms" where HIV-infected people and others can exchange information and offer emotional support.
"We tried not to do anything that already existed that we thought was good," she explained.
Volberding said the Web site "is a very unusual project for us. We've published a lot of books and journals where you put all the work into making sure it's exactly perfect up front. But a Web site is more like a daily newspaper. It's never done and it's always happening.'
Volberding said the Web site was launched with a $500,000 budget provided by the Kaiser Foundation and two pharmaceutical companies.
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