Beer Pong Doesn't Cause Herpes!
Beer pong fans can relax -- their pursuit will not give them herpes. Nor can they expect free cups from the president of Arizona State University. Several Web sites have run items -- apparently intended as humor -- linking the popular drinking game to the considerably less popular disease. While the item doesn't reach Swiftian levels of satire, there are certainly clues that the "news" story is fake. It's a little hard to imagine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the alleged source of the research findings) recommending alternative drinking games to college students or offering advice on how to practice "safe beer pong." And we have a hard time imagining Michael Crow, Arizona State's president, passing out germ-free, new red cups to allow his students to play beer pong without worrying about herpes, as he is described as doing in the article. But the item was picked up by college newspapers and local television stations (one of which is now publishing a correction on its Web site about using a faux Crow quote). Stephen Colbert had fun with the hoax, featuring several of the false reports about a beer pong-herpes link. As for the CDC, it has released a statement indicating that it never published a paper about the alleged link.
