That the popular drinking game beer pong is a font of contagion I do not doubt, but it's my job to separate rumor from fact, so let the hairsplitting begin. Despite what you may have heard on Fox News and elsewhere, beer pong has not been implicated in a rise in the occurrence of HSV-1 (the herpes virus responsible for cold sores) among college students.
Several venues have claimed the erroneous information came from a reliable source, namely the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Not so, says the CDC:
The irony is, they were.
Several venues have claimed the erroneous information came from a reliable source, namely the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Not so, says the CDC:
Recent news stories about an alleged CDC study showing a possible link between the drinking game, Beer Pong, and herpes simplex 1, the virus that causes cold sores, are false. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not publish the referenced article.Like so much of what passes for news these days, the beer pong herpes story started out as Internet chatter. The earliest mention of the supposed epidemic appeared last July on the website BannedinHollywood.com, which quoted a CDC spokesman named (pronounce it out loud) Dr. Cole Desorio:
"If it’s absolutely necessary to play beer pong, use the waterfall method. Many young adults, when asked if they practice safe pong, responded that they rinse the ball after it bounces off the table. CDC statistics have shown that rinsing has a negligible effect on the prevention of HSV transmission." He went on the record, "We’re here to educate students on the dangers of [beer] pong and other casual drinking games. If we can get just one person to abstain, we’ve done our job."Better late than never, the author of what is clearly an online leg-pull came clean earlier today in a posting on the same blog. "I came up with the idea while observing a few friends playing everyone’s favorite party game," Sean Thomas writes in an Open Letter to Fox News. "In passing, I thought this might be ripe for a satirical article." (Bit of an understatement in retrospect.) "Our first inclination is that no one would believe it was real," he continues. "We thought the ridiculous quotes were a dead giveaway."
The irony is, they were.
Comments
just goes to show: don’t believe what your hear on Fox!
Just because the CDC didn’t do a study on beer pong doesn’t mean that it is a good idea to play the game. Playing the game is unsanitary. Besides, drinking beer triggers outbreaks of HSV in some people and has other detrimental effects.
spud sounds like he is no fun
May not be huge raise in infections but it certainly doesn’t help at all
Being a college student I realize how ridiculously unsanitary beer pong is. Even the ball washing method is pretty bad. I don’t know about everywhere, but here we normally practice another method. Fill the cups your playing with water and drink from you’re own separate cup. It’s sanitary and keeps the beer colder.
There you go! That’s what I thought
If fox news says it then it must be true. That’s why they are the most trusted name in news. Ebv lives for up to five minutes , if you don’t think herpes are being spread then you probably got them
Ok I agree with matthew you should play that way, but also some ppl shouldnt believe all they read some of the stuff is facts, opinions, science fiction, historical, drama, poetry lol u catch my drift. I’m just saying if u believe everything u read then u should research ur believes and something’s will shock you! Have a good and safe time!