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A NEW URBAN LEGEND
Several well meaning safety warnings were received at our Web site regarding the threat of being infected with aids. An example of the typical warning follows:
For your information, a couple of weeks ago, in a Dallas movie theater, a person sat on something sharp in one of the seats. When she stood up to see what it was, a needle was found poking through the seat with an attached note saying, "you have been infected with HIV".
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reports similar events have taken place in several other cities recently. All of the needles tested HAVE been positive for HIV. The CDC also reports that needles have been found in the coin return areas of pay phones and soda machines.
Everyone is asked to use extreme caution when confronted with these types of situations. All public chairs should be thoroughly but safely inspected prior to any use. A thorough visual inspection is considered the bare minimum. Furthermore, they ask that everyone notify their family members and friends of the potential dangers, as well. Thank you.
The previous information was sent from the Dallas Police Department to all of the local governments in the Washington area and was interdepartmentally dispersed. We were all asked to pass this to as many people as possible.
Since this warning had the characteristics of an urban legend, we backtracked it. Here's what we found:
An employee of a college admissions office who had disseminated one of these warnings responded to our inquiry as follows:
One of my friends sent me the message. I don't remember which one it was I did not realize that someone could be so cruel as to make something like that up. I passed it on to my friends and all of my outgoing mail attaches a signature to the end of the message. I have had several calls concerning the validity of the message. Most of them say it is not true. I would say if you want to get to find out for sure, call the CDC in Atlanta. If you forward the message on. Please take my name, address and phone number off of it.
We then took the next logical step and phoned the Dallas Police Department with the following results:
Ms. Jackson of the Dallas Police Department's Public Information office at 214/670-4403 confirmed that this alleged "aids needle in the theater seat story" is an Urban Legend. It never happened. She also mentioned that a Dallas newspaper ran a story debunking this myth and she will be faxing US a copy if she still has it around.
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