Web Site Offers STD Alerts By E-Mail
Wednesday, 22 Oct 2008, 1:46 AM CD



LOS ANGELES -- How does a person tell someone they have slept with that they may have exposed that person to a sexually transmitted disease? It's likely not an easy thing to tell someone, but a Web site is changing that for some.

A San Francisco group says more than 50,000 people have sent e-cards through its Web site to tell sexual partners they should get tested for diseases, according to an article published in PLoS Medicine.

The site, inSpot.org, sends anonymous e-cards to notify past sexual partners that they should get tested for sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes and the human immunodeficiency virus, the disease that causes AIDS.

One of the postcards starts of with the message: "There's no easy way to say this ..." A second one is flirty: "You're too hot to be out of action. I got diagnosed with an STD since we played. You might want to get checked too." Another gets straight to the somber message: "Who? What? When? Where? It doesn't matter. I got an STD; you might have it too. Please get checked out."

ironic you should mention this, I was watching a WE show, it was talking about how STD's are on the rise again, their example was...if you've slept with 10 people and those 10 people slept with 10 others, and those 10 people slept with 10 others, on & on..x10...you would have "slept" with 100,000 people! Scarey.

I think that people need to be reminded of that. AIDS has no cure.