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HIV e-mail a hoax, health officials say Friday, Apr 27, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - An e-mail currently in circulation that purports to be from a state human services employee and warns of possible HIV-infected blood in the ketchup at fast food restaurants is a hoax, officials said Thursday. The e-mail states that a man believed to be HIV-positive was caught placing blood in a ketchup dispenser at an unnamed fast food restaurant and recommends that fast food customers use only ketchup in sealed packages. At the bottom of the e-mail are the name, phone number, fax number and e-mail address of state Department of Health and Human Services employee Thelma Jean Martin. "It's a hoax," Martin said Thursday when asked about the e-mail. The original source of the e-mail, which was forwarded to a Stephens Media reporter, was not apparent. Martin said she has received numerous phone calls over the past two weeks about the much-forwarded message, but she said she did not create it and has no knowledge of such an incident at any restaurant. Darla Davis, an administrative assistant at DHHS, said no such incident has been reported to the department. The hoax is not new, she said. "That is an urban legend that has been going around since 2004," Davis said. "That is not true." DHHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said even if such an incident were reported to DHHS, Martin would not have access to the information. As a computer operator in the quality assurance unit of DHHS' Division of County Operations, Martin has no access to the medical records of the department's HIV program, Munsell said. Kathy Roche, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, said that office's Public Protection Department has not received any inquiries or complaints about the e-mail purporting to come from DHHS, but it is "familiar with this sort of hoax." |
