Petrelis Files

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2005

Contacts:
Sister Mary Elizabeth
Founder, Publisher - AEGIS.org
949-248-5843
Mary@aegis.org

Michael Petrelis
Advocate - mpetrelis.blogspot.com
415-621-6267
MPetrelis@aol.com

NY TIMES AGREES TO SHARE 24-YEAR AIDS NEWS ARCHIVE
WITH AEGIS.ORG, WORLD'S LARGEST FREE ACCESS AIDS INFORMATION SITE

ACTIVIST WILL SPEAK AT ANNUAL TIMES' SHAREHOLDERS MEETING TO DEMAND IMPROVING AIDS COVERAGE

(San Juan Capistrano, CA) - After twelve years of requests from AIDS activists, The New York Times on March 24 reached agreement to make available its entire 24-years of AIDS news coverage to AEGIS.org, the world's largest free-access AIDS information website. (AEGIS is an acronym for the AIDS Education Global Information System).

From the July 3, 1981, story about a rare cancer manifesting in homosexuals to articles in the past two months about a mutant drug-resistant HIV strain detected in New York City, dozens of Times stories are available now at http://www.aegis.org/news/nyt/, and additional articles will be loaded to the AEGIS.org archive over the next couple of months.

"I'm grateful to the Times's executives for their humanitarian gesture," said Sister Mary Elizabeth, founder and publisher of the nonprofit site. "Visitors to AEGIS.org will be able to search twenty-four years of AIDS stories, analyses and editorials for free. The Times joins other mainstream newspapers and wire services that have contributed their archives to us, such as Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, Reuters, the United Press International, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal."

Since 1990, AEGIS.org has provided a comprehensive history of the AIDS pandemic, and has been nominated to UNESCO's "Memory of the World".

This donation from The New York Times comes after 12 years of requests from Sister Mary Elizabeth, which the newspaper continually refused. Then, last year, longtime activist and person with AIDS Michael Petrelis bought a single share in The Times, so he could attend the annual shareholders meeting. There, he echoed Sister Mary Elizabeth's plea to publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and the board of directors. While Petrelis was also refused, Sister Mary Elizabeth's father also purchased shares in the company and continued to press The Times to provide AEGIS.org with free access to their AIDS/HIV stories. Finally in early March 2005, The Times changed its mind and agreed to provide its AIDS/HIV archive free of charge to AEGIS.ORG.

Activist Petrelis applauds the development. "The Times is doing the AIDS community a great favor with its decision to share their archive. By having free access to Times stories, scientists, journalists, activists and people with AIDS/HIV will have crucial information at their fingertips."

Petrelis plans to attend The Times' annual shareholders meeting on April 26 at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York to thank publisher Sulzberger for sharing his paper's AIDS archive. Petrelis will also press for improvement in AIDS coverage especially related to research and epidemiology.