The ever-so popular, casual encounters page, has been linked by a new study showing a 15.9 percent surge in HIV from 1999-2008. The ads coincided with 6,000 new HIV cases annually, the University of Minnesota study said.
However, the research also makes the claim that it is not ads by professional sex workers that are responsible for an increase in STDs through casual sexual encounters, but those from people not engaging in paid-for sexual services, Science Daily said. It cited the study, by Jason Chan, of the Carlson School of Management, and New York University’s Anindya Ghose, published in the December issue of MIS Quarterly.
Craiglist, a San Fransisco-based classified ads website, was incorporated as a for-profit company in 1999. For a decade, it ran “erotic” and “adult” ads on its personals section, but later dropped them after criticism from some quarters that it was promoting prostitution and sexual trafficking.
The authors said that the extra cases of HIV, the virus that causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), over the period 1999-2008 in 33 US states, translate into between $62 million and $65.3 million in medical treatment for those who become HIV positive, an abstract from the study claimed.
