Business launches STD-free card, but some say it can't be trusted
11:43 a.m. Thursday, August 28, 2008
Phoenix — How would you feel if you sexual partner handed you a card that claims they're STD-free?
Now, people who are sexually active can produce proof. A company producing those cards is called STFree.
Here's how it works, for a membership fee between $20 and $40, the company will store the results of all your STD testing. Whenever you decide to be intimate with someone, you hand them the card, they call a toll-free number, punch in a pin and hear the results.
But people ABC News spoke to say they don't know if they would trust a card for something that serious.
"I don't know how much you can trust this card," Arizona State University student Matt Zweig said. "I don't know who makes it, or if a doctor is saying they have no STDs, if they've actually been tested. I don't know how fake or real it is."
Others, like ASU student Eden Waldon, say the card takes the intimacy and trust out of the relationship.
"Me personally? I would just want to tell the person just straight up. I wouldn't want them to have to go through a whole system on the computer," Waldon said.
And some students, like Noah Lebowitz, feel the only safe way to go is abstinence.
"I avoid it all -- just kind of waiting. I think it's the safest way to be sure about staying STD free," Lebowitz said.
Even though the idea behind the card is to promote safe sex, those who teach safe sex say it could be promoting unsafe practices.
"I think it's the most ridiculous idea that's ever been conceived. It would say 'you know what, they got the card, they got the clean, I can be unprotected. No big deal. So, I think it makes having unsafe sex, yeah, more appealing," said Michael Weakley, with 1n10 Educators
If you don't get tested and get the card updated after each and every time you are intimate, the information may not be accurate.
"It's trusting that the person hasn't had sex since they were tested. It's trusting that they are being honest with you because an STD can show up within 24 hours," Weakley said.
Weakley says it's hard to believe anyone would take the time to call such a phone number in the heat of the moment.
"No one is gonna call it. It's not gonna happen. It's just a ridiculous ticket that says 'hey, take a chance. I may or may not have a disease,'" he said.
According to Weakley and the Center for Disease Control, besides abstinence, safe sex is the only way to stay disease-free.
"Protection every time 100-percent. No matter how long you've known your partner, regardless of a card you have or anything like that," Weakley said.
Doctors still recommend people to get an annual check-up for STDs and AIDS.
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