Dear Reader:
Scary stuff, indeed. But, as you surmised, it's false — the latest variant of an old and familiar urban legend with precedents dating back to the 1920s and '30s.
Tales of the so-called "Needle Men" — sinister characters who lurked in public places waiting to prick unsuspecting women with opiate-laced needles and kidnap them — were first recorded in Lyle Saxon's 1945 book, Gumbo Ya-Ya: A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales. "If they ever sticks their needles in your arm you is just a plain goner," went one oral account. "All they gotta do is jest brush by you, and there you is; you is been stuck." The victims were supposedly murdered and their bodies used in medical experiments.
In a variant set in New Orleans, the Needle Men allegedly jabbed random victims in darkened movie theaters and hauled them off into white slavery. "For months in New Orleans downtown cinemas," writes Saxon, "women were screaming and fainting and crying out they had been jabbed with a needle. But so far as can be ascertained, the period offered no more disappearances than usual, nor is it known that any New Orleans women strayed down the primrose path via this particular route."
More than sixty years later, new variants have begun to appear with a twist that plays on more contemporary fears: the needles are contaminated with AIDS. Here's an example, as posted on the Internet, from 1998:
Recently I was told a story by a workmate concerning someone whom he knew, by sight at least, who was out for a night on the town. During the course of the night he felt a slight pin prick. Later on he discovered that he had been stabbed probably with a needle and then went on to discover that he had contracted the H.I.V. virus.
And this, circulating by email the same year:
This could be life or death for somebody. There are these gangs running around Britain sticking HIV-infected needles into people and then handing them a card/leaflet reading "Welcome To The world of HIV."
The familiar tag line, also rendered variously as "Welcome to the world of AIDS" or "Welcome to the HIV club," was borrowed from another legend that was very popular in the 1980s during the early days of the AIDS epidemic — "AIDS Mary." Mary was said to be an AIDS victim who sought revenge for being given the disease by sleeping with unsuspecting men and infecting them on purpose. As the story went, the victims would wake up the next morning to find Mary gone and a note in her place which read, "Welcome to the world of AIDS."
Once the tag line had become attached to the pinprick rumors of the late '90s, a succession of variants followed. Depending on which email rumor you read, unknown miscreants are hiding HIV-tainted needles in theater seats, on gas pump handles or in the coin return slots of pay phones and vending machines, supposedly infecting random victims with the deadly disease. But aside from a few copycat pranks reported in rural Virginia two years ago, there's no evidence to suggest any of the stories are true. The Centers for Disease Control stated in 2000 that the organization was unaware of any proven cases of AIDS being transmitted through purposely hidden needles to date.
As to the present story, despite its uppercase insistence that "THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!!!" it has no more substance than the similar stories that preceded it. One would expect such malicious deeds to make headlines — but in fact the only mention they've garnered in the Canadian press consists of a denial. University of Lethbridge spokesman Bob Cooney, after accurately identifying the story as "a variation of a common urban legend," told the Lethbridge Herald that its widespread circulation has created nothing but headaches for the University:
"Factually inaccurate information like this causes not only damage to our institution's reputation, but takes up a lot of time as a number of people on campus answer queries from concerned individuals who call us to confirm that this did not happen."
He added: "If you have a chance to stop this or other false emails from spreading, please do so." 
~ David Emery
Current Netlore
The Urban Legends Top 25
