Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Tuesday August 24, 1999
Jeffrey Klausner, director of the sexually transmitted disease unit at the San Francisco Department of Health, said investigators quizzing the last seven homosexual men reporting syphilis infections were surprised to find that all seven found their most recent sexual contacts through a chat room on America Online: SFM4M, or San Francisco Men-For-Men.
The outbreak rang alarm bells for Klausner, who noted that venereal diseases like syphilis can boost a person's vulnerability to HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.
Clearly, the remaining visitors in the SFM4M needed to be warned -- but how to fight a cyberspace health threat in a chat room where anonymity is prized and people are known only by their on-line nicknames?
"The challenge for us has been to contact, notify and inform individuals (when) we only have their Internet screen handles," Klausner said Monday. America Online declined to alter its privacy policy and reveal the identities of the chat room regulars, but it did put Klausner in touch with PlanetOut, an online gay and lesbian community.
"The health department did contact us looking for advice on how to use the online medium to deal with this public health issue," said Rich D'Amato, an AOL spokesman.
PlanetOut staff spent two weeks visiting the chat room and warning users about the outbreak, urging them to take syphilis tests and to practice safe sex. While the chatters' anonymity has been protected, officials hope they have got the message. Klausner said the experience has been an eye-opener, and that future public health campaigns would certainly take into account the growing role that the Internet plays in human relationships.
"We've learned that Internet contacts are an important sexual network," he told the San Francisco Examiner Monday.
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