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A small outbreak of syphilis in San Francisco traced back to an Internet chat
room for gay men marks the first move into cyberspace for public health
officials. Five infected men knew their sexual partners only by online aliases,
and America Online refused to divulge personal information without a court
order. So health officials decided to investigate the outbreak through e-mail
and chat rooms. “This is new territory,” says Rich Damato of AOL in Dulles,
Virginia, who says the online approach maintains anonymity. “This points to how
these matters may be dealt with in the future.”