E-MAIL PROJECT OFFERS LESSON ON HIV INFECTION.Byline: Elizabeth Weise Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. A circle of friends, lots of socializing, maybe you don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. everyone as well as you might, and then, suddenly, one day you get it - the AIDS virus AIDS virus n. See HIV. . In your e-mail, that is. You've become part of an interesting experiment that's been making its way around the Internet for the last two months. On Wednesday, it went into pandemic pandemic /pan·dem·ic/ (pan-dem´ik) 1. a widespread epidemic of a disease. 2. widely epidemic. pan·dem·ic adj. Epidemic over a wide geographic area. n. mode when it was sent out as part of the daily Internet AIDS news summary by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. It started as a message from someone known only as "young Bradley" who began it as part of a health class project on AIDS. "Could you all pretend that I have HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. , and I gave it to you. Then could you pass it on to your friends? Let's see Let's See was a Canadian television series broadcast on CBC Television between September 6, 1952 to July 4, 1953. The segment, which had a running time of 15 minutes, was a puppet show with a character named Uncle Chichimus (voice of John Conway), which presented each if the entire e-mail population could get infected by me alone," the message read. Each time the message was forwarded, or "transmitted" on the Internet, the To: line showed just how many people it has "infected." By Friday, the headers took up 10 pages and consisted of hundreds of names. All traces of the original sender, beyond his name, had been obliterated o·blit·er·ate tr.v. o·blit·er·at·ed, o·blit·er·at·ing, o·blit·er·ates 1. To do away with completely so as to leave no trace. See Synonyms at abolish. 2. . Of course, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, isn't as easily transmitted as junk e-mail. "Not only is HIV less transmittable, but it involves willful relationships on each side. You can't send me HIV unless I want to get it," said Dr. James Curran, dean of the school of public health at Emory University in Atlanta. "The very nature of e-mail relationships is that they involve people sitting in front of a computer screen; they're not intimate," he added. And it's intimate contact that spreads the AIDS virus. Bradley's message assures readers AIDS is not transmitted by casual contact, but only by having unprotected sex or sharing needles. Still, having the message pop up on your screen does give pause. "The message clearly demonstrates how anyone can be affected by HIV," said Rob Sabados of ACT UP!, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power in San Francisco. While the transmission of electronic mail may not be the best model for how HIV is passed along, it does highlight a powerful tool in the fight against AIDS, said Curran. "The spread of information about HIV on the Internet is excellent." An AIDS "virtual library" can be found at http://www.actwin.com/aids/vl.h tml |
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