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I've always wondered if there have been cases where people have woken up in an ice-filled bathtub with an incision in the side, and next to the tub is standing a used dinner plate and half a bottle of chianti.

It happened to this mate of mine, honest!
 
I can confirm that this type of thing really happens. When I was in High School my English teacher told us that the night before class that day her niece was in line at the movies and someone walked up behind her and her friends and stuck two of them with a needle. He then said "Congratulations, You've got Aids", then he ran away. My teacher was crying when she told us the story. I don't know if any of the kids ever got Aids or not.
 
AIDS Urban Legends

There was a tale in all the Irish papers a few years back about the 'Angel of Death' infecting young men in the South and South East of Ireland. The story came from a priest who preached in his sermon about a young woman who had apparently moved into the area from England and had AIDS. As part of some vengeance ploy against men she was sleeping with up to two dozen teenagers/young men and many of them became infected. The story made national news because a local journalist was at the Mass and sold the tale to the national papers - cue several days of paranoia. The priest involved (can't recall his name) was quite well known and is a relative of the US Kennedy family. He said he had counselled some of these men. However the story died and, despite investigation by newspapers, etc., no 'Angel of Death' or large increase in HIV infection was found at all.
 
Re: AIDS Urban Legends

Scarlett said:
There was a tale in all the Irish papers a few years back about the 'Angel of Death' infecting young men in the South and South East of Ireland.


I remember a similar story in Scotland (or was it England.) I can't be as sure about the geniology of the story as you but I'm sure it was focusing on an aleged incident on the mainland.

It probably came from the same source. After all in the early days of Aids moving into the Hetrosexual comunity there was widespred panic and paranoia. Diric Jarman, comenting on this period, said that they where one step away from seting up camps for gay men. well I think it would have been for any 'imoral' person, including intravenis drug users and sexualy promiscuis hetrosexuals.

Another example of the fear of sexualy powerfull women similer to the cries of 'witch' all over europe in the preceding centuries? Or simpaly fear of women. you choose.
 
There was a similar story in the UK about ten years ago, a bloke HIV positive, due to treatment for hemophilia, seeing no reason to restrict his sexual activities & infecting about half a dozen girls.

Possibly an UL, as it came up in a lecture as to how the hetrosexual population was no longer taking AIDS seriously!!!!!
 
Homophobic myths abound but some sexual practices are far from
being legends, sadly. It does not take much digging on the seedier
side of the web to find a very active culture of deliberately unsafe
sex. (try "Bareback" in any search engine). There are also, bizarre
as it may seem, "Bug-chasers" who seek to become HIV+.

There were many tabloid horror tales at the time when AIDS was
hot news but I am afraid that the notion that some infected people
sought to spread the virus, via heterosexual or homosexual means
does not strike me as unlikely at all. :(
 
Oh yes, there have been cases of people deliberately infecting others. There have been court cases where people have been convicted of this (not in Ireland though). The reason I thought the Wexford case was clearly a UL was the total lack of any follow up evidence.
The point a previous poster made about 'fear of women' is true. As far as I know it is physically harder for a woman to pass on the virus to a man through straight sex, than vice versa (less fluids from woman, etc.).
The interesting factor in the Wexford story was the stress on evil 'Angel of Death' foreign woman infecting 'our' innocent naive young men by seducing them.
 
A few years ago I was watching Ricki Lake on TV when on holiday. A woman on there was talking about how she was deliberatly infecting cheating husbands with AIDS because she wanted to get rid of them.
 
to clarify my point

When I qouted Deric Jarman in a previous mail I did not meen to engage in an antihetro rant. I mearly thought that it would ilumanate the debate about the aids related urban myths.

I admit that I have had to refuse sex with men from time to time because they refused to wear protection and I do not myself engage in any high risk sexual activity.

I just wanted to point out that these tails may have grown out of aids hysteria in the early days of the pandemic.

I'm not a hetrohating queer, Honest.
 
In responce to the report that was submited by Arielsmoke (hope I got it right): The motivation for the atacks probably came from this thread.

Well probably not...
 
Toddler stabbed with hypodermic needle

I wish I could file this under Urban Legends but seems not to be the case. The most recent case as reported on the BBC website is accompanied by a link to a similar previous story. Recent case here, earlier one here. What on earth could be behind these vicious unprovoked attacks if they're real (not that I;m saying they aren't).
Finally, the two year old recently attacked was described as with two six year olds. Were they supposed to be supervising or something? :confused:
 
I smell a rat. Were there any adult witnesses? And what was a 2 year old doing out in the street with a couple of 6 year olds? The older kids shouldn't have been out unsupervised in the first place.

There's more to this story than meets the eye.
 
Es,

to see two 6-year-olds looking after a 2-year-old any day of the week, head to one of the more economically challenged areas of any town. An unpleasent fact of life, born of desperation and grinding poverty rather than studied neglect.

I just re-read the above sentence... it could have been written at anytime from 1850 onwards. We really haven't come very far in all that time.

Ah well
 
I might try to get that book from the library , it looks interesting .
Kids round here get turned out to play as soon as they are out of nappies. They get up to all sorts of trouble and their mothers will never believe you . I'm amazed none have died yet .
 
Xanatic said:
A few years ago I was watching Ricki Lake on TV when on holiday. A woman on there was talking about how she was deliberatly infecting cheating husbands with AIDS because she wanted to get rid of them.
Then presumably the innocent wife would catch it from him.
How nice?
 
Red Dalek said:
Then presumably the innocent wife would catch it from him.
How nice?

Maybe children were born with it because of her. She is, in fact, a mass murderer.
 
I have a very vague memory of some TV cop show from the late 80's (Bergerac maybe) doing the story where a businessman has casual sex with a woman then wakes up in his hotel the next morning to see 'Welcome to AIDS' written on the mirror in lipstick.

In this version he was so shocked that he walked into the lobby starkers and got arrested...
 
A case of deliberate spread of HIV is currently being investigated in Ontario:

http://www.canada.com/toronto/story.asp?id=E700BD03-3998-4E74-B6EE-68CAD7AA8AE8

HIV carrier's contacts grow to 18
Assault charges pending

The number of women who say they have been unknowingly exposed to the HIV virus now stands at 18 after police began a search last week for the sexual partners of an infected Hamilton man.

Aggravated assault charges against Johnson Apangu Aziga, a researcher with Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney-General, have sparked the province-wide hunt for his former lovers.

Mr. Aziga's alleged exploits were first revealed when a former girlfriend contacted Hamilton Police upon learning of his infection.

"When we arrested him, we learned of a second victim," said Sergeant Maggie McKittrick, a spokeswoman for Hamilton Police. "From the media coverage in one day in the newspaper, we had an additional three people come forward. From there it's just snowballed."

Police say 18 women have contacted them since Mr. Aziga, 47, was initially charged on Aug. 29. Two came forward yesterday.

Mr. Aziga faces five charges of aggravated assault and five charges of aggravated sexual assault.

Detective Kelly Rees, one of the investigators, confirmed there could be even higher numbers.

"I hope it's not too much higher, to tell you the truth, because it's really sad," she said. "Some women have been shell-shocked, some have been, surprisingly, incredibly courageous. It's the most heart-wrenching thing that could happen to them, and they're being forthright and open with intimate details of their lives."

Mr. Aziga tested positive for HIV in 1996, three years before an acrimonious divorce.

Investigators are working to retrace his footsteps over the past seven years to see how far afield the virus may have travelled. So far, they have learned of alleged incidents in Hamilton, Toronto, Brantford and Sault Ste. Marie.
 
This reminds me of an e-mail we received at work recently warning the operational staff that when visiting blocks of flats to use a pen or something to push the buttons of the lift because people have started to push razor blades into the gap around the edge which may prick you when you push the button.

Can't find the actual e-mail now, but I haven't heard of it happening to anyone I know.
 
My learned friends, if I may be so bold as to interject at this point. In the new UNISON Health and Safety newsletter we've received at work, there are guidelines on what Council workers should do (those who work outside where hypodermics get left) when they inadvertently get pricked, by fair means or foul. Nottingham is a bit of a hotbed of discarded and planted needles at the moment, as well as other AIDS in a syringe related jiggery pokery...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2293633.stm

There was a chap arrested a couple of months ago for robbing people at cashpoints with a blood loaded syringe saying he'd stab them if they didn't give them money too. I can only find one link for this..

Link

It's the green, blue and yellow bit near the bottom of the page.

Stoires like this are usually blown out of all proportion though, and suddenly we have all these daft scares. :eek!!!!:

[Emp edit: Fixing big link]
 
read cohen's book called (something like (i need to check)) 'folk devils and moral panics' for a good explenation of how the media reinforces and blows out of proportion events like this. this book deals with the whole mod vs the rockers thing.
 
Boy Finds Syringe In Toy Box

Teen Will Be Tested For HIV

POSTED: 10:53 AM CST February 3, 2004
UPDATED: 11:26 AM CST February 3, 2004


OMAHA, Neb. -- An Omaha teen opened a box of toys this week to find more than the Legos he expected inside. Joshua Morgal, 14, found a syringe full of blood.

"I was stunned," Morgal said.


Morgal's mother, Laura Ewoldt, bought her son a box of toys at the St. Vincent DePaul store in Omaha to reward him for good grades. When her son brought her what he'd found in the box, he had already been scratched -- maybe by the Legos, maybe by the syringe.

"After rewarding him with a toy for doing good in school, now I don't know if he's gonna live or die," Ewoldt said

Morgal will be tested for HIV as a precaution.

A manager at St. Vincent DePaul said all merchandise is inspected before it is sold to the public.

Ewoldt said she should have looked through the box, too, but she insists the syringe came from the store.

"I don't do drugs," Ewoldt said. "I smoke cigarettes, but I do not do drugs."

Omaha police took the syringe for evidence. They will try to find out where the syringe came from and whether any crime has been committed.

Ewoldt said that in addition to the syringe, she and her son found a toy dart, a small metal rod, a ring, a box of matches and some batteries that had leaked.

http://www.theomahachannel.com/health/2814334/detail.html

There is video footage at the site too.

Emps
 
A few years ago there was a fellow raping women in order to pass on the AIDS virus in the area I grew up in. As well we went to a birthday party at a kids amusement place and they had closed the ball pit that the kids play in because of some story in houston where someone put a heroin laced needle in the bin and a baby was pricked and had to be hospitalized. Have no idea in that one is true but they did close the ball pit. There was the UL a few years ago about the needles in the change tray of pay phones and I have heard the movie theater ones as well. Although I think the only way that would work is if you arrived after the movie started and sat down in the dark as the theaters are pretty well lit before the show. I agree about there being a bigger threat from hepatitis. The kids now have to be immunized for Hep-B before going to school now. But what about A? We had that whole outbreak in the US in New Jersey from not washing green onions well enough. I think it is good to be cautious but I think the media inundates us with bad stories all day long. It makes you not trust your fellow man. I think about the stuff we used to do nothing ever happened.
 
I should realy read the thread first but...

related to the needle panic stuff is the 'deliberate infection with AIDS' URLs that did the rounds in the 80s
 
Yes pretty much but also the current ones. I think all UL's get recycled and updated. I have heard ones repeated over and over. There is a good show I catch every now and then it's on Discovery or TLC where they take UL and investigate if they have any basis in fact. Quite entertaining, I usually catch it late at night when I can't sleep.
 
Another bizarre twist in Renn murder case



CFCN.ca


POSTED AT 4:44 PM Wednesday, March 17


There has been another surprising twist in the Jennifer Renn murder investigation.

Police say an important witness in the case was injected with blood suspected of being tainted with H-I-V.

One man has been arrested in connection with that incident.

Travis Douglas Erskine is charged with assault with a weapon, aggravated assault and administering a noxious substance.

The body of 29-year-old Jennifer Renn was discovered in the trunk of a car in the police impound lot Feb. 19.

Police say a witness, who had been assaulted, flagged down a passing police vehicle and told investigators about her body.

He also told investigators that he had been held captive by a group of people who beat him and injected another person's blood into him. Investigators say the witness saw Renn's body being carried from a hotel room to his car.

Erikson was arrested in Medicine Hat on an unrelated incident.

Police say their investigation is continuing and they are still trying to locate a number of people of interest in the case.

Source
 
Needles + cinema seats

This old chestnut was regurgitated to me by my mum when we were in the shops. It was a perfect moment.

Apparently, one of her students (she's a lecturer) has just come back from France, where she was told that a friend of a friend had seen junkies sticking needles in cinema seats. Therefore, I was to be very careful when I next went to the cinema.

Although this did set me wondering - has anyone actually acted on the urban myth and done it? (not on this board, obviously, I mean some crazy junkie :) )
 
taras: I merged your post with this one as it deals with similar ground.

It does sound like it occasionally happens although I suspect careless disposal of works by junkie sis probably a more probable source of infection.
 
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