Public health departments across the country established educational programs much later than voluntary organizations. It was not until 1987, for example, that the Illinois Department of Public Health created a special AIDS section to coordinate the state's response to the disease, with 2.3 million dollars earmarked for AIDS prevention and education programs aimed at physicians, drug users, and the general public. The poster to the left is designed to assuage fears about the possibility of casual transmission by depicting "safe" behaviors in the same way that other infectious disease campaigns modeled proper preventive behaviors. The viewer is told that handshakes at the office, eating at the local diner, using a public bathroom, and opening an average door are "safe" activities. While challenging misconceptions about spread of the disease, the poster fails to make any distinction between the virus of HIV, discovered in 1983, and its symptomatic manifestation with AIDS.. NOTE: Original is slightly blurry.
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