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Penn State students may use Internet to prevent STD spread
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by Chantel Luxem
Friday, March 26, 2004
Individuals infected with a sexually transmitted disease can contact potentially affected partners via the Internet through a new health department service that Pennsylvania State University students could soon access.
<p>The Pennsylvania Department of Health is currently advocating an online notification system for individuals who have recently had sexual encounters with an STD carrier.
<p>The effort is specifically targeted at Internet users who have arranged anonymous meetings to engage in sexual acts because online chatters commonly use alias names in chat rooms.
<p>Richard McGarvey, spokesman of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said the Internet has created new challenges in stopping the spread of STDs.
<p>”Instead of people meeting at a local bar as in the past, nowadays they are making arrangements right online,” McGarvey said. “Therefore, they don’t necessarily know their correct address or contact information to get in touch with them in the future if a problem arises.”
<p>Once an infected individual involved in the encounter is aware of an STD, it is difficult to contact past partners due to alias information. The Internet STD reporting system would also help track the sexual activities of infected individuals’ partners.
<p>The Pennsylvania Department of Health has been working on the partner-notification system over the past year. It adopted the system from San Francisco-area health departments that have been using the web-notification method for the past couple years. At this point in time, Penn State has not adapted the partner-notification system into its protocol.
<p>”So far, we have received positive feedback from the system,” McGarvey said. “But there are risks regarding online notification, so we need to be very sensitive about the way we go about sending out information.”
<p>McGarvey said the possibility of someone other than the user opening e-mails is a main concern for the confidentiality of the at-risk individual.
<p>Dr. Scott Spear, director of clinical services at University of Wisconsin’s University Health Services, said that UHS currently does not officially implement the partner-notification system. They do strongly urge infected patients to contact their sexual partners from the last three months immediately.
<p>UHS provides information regarding STDs to patients in hopes that they will pass on the information to partners.
<p>Although Spear does support the idea of stopping the spread of STDs by publicizing STD dangers, he does acknowledge the possibilities of problems concerning confidentiality matters over the Web.
<p>”No system is perfectly secure, so very personal information could be disclosed to the wrong person,” Spear said. “Another issue is that people are not expecting to receive an e-mail that says that they might be potentially infected. This could scare a lot of people away.”
<p>According to Spear, there are no official records of STD statistics of students on UW’s campus. UHS reports STD cases to the city health department.
<p>Official statistics are unavailable because UHS does not treat all students to make a correct generalization. In addition, the city heath department does not distinguish between cases of UW students and non-students.
<p>UW sophomore Elizabeth Deisinger believes an STD-notification e-mail would most likely be deleted as junk mail due to its unexpected content.
<p>”With the masses of chain letters and false advertisements sent to inboxes on a daily basis, an e-mail saying that you might have an STD would probably be received as an unpleasant joke,” Deisinger said.
<p>”The whole idea behind this system seems to be that people can’t keep track of their partners or will not accept the responsibility of approaching them themselves,” she said.
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