June 8, 2001

The MGH Public Affairs Office was honored by the Publicity Club of New England with three Bell Ringer Awards June 5. The Bell Ringer Awards recognize excellence in the communications and public relations fields.

The staff received a first-place award for the special millennium issue of Hotline published January 2000, which was selected as best special publication. They also received a merit award in national print feature/commentary placement and earned a first-place award for best crisis communication campaign. The crisis communication award came in recognition of the team's publicity efforts for an AIDS study last summer. The study — in which MGH researchers discovered they could harness the immune system to fight AIDS by systematically taking certain HIV-infected patients off their medications — was complicated, and the findings could easily be misunderstood. Public Affairs developed a national campaign that, according to the study's lead researcher, "was truly exceptional."