April Fool’s Day hoax not so funny to some

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
(217) 244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

McKinley Health Center received numerous telephone calls April 1 as the result of a prank e-mail message announcing a recall of defective condoms purportedly distributed by the health center.

The message, which was sent to undergraduate students as an April Fool’s Day hoax, was written to appear as if it were a mass e-mail to students generated by a McKinley Health Center assistant director. The message said that McKinley Health Center had been advised of quality control problems with condoms manufactured by Trojan Brand Condoms. The fictitious message said that patrons of McKinley Health Center might have received condoms with microscopic holes in them.

Recipients were advised to inspect their condoms and return any unused products bearing a specific lot number to drop boxes at McKinley Health Center and McKinley Resource Center or to deposit them in tuition drop boxes at the Illini Union or Henry Administration Building.

"I want to make it very clear that we have not distributed defective condoms," said Dr. Robert Palinkas, McKinley Health Center director. "I think a lot of people have been caused unnecessary worry and inconvenience by this message. Occasionally there are reports in the media about recalling defective condoms, but we have checked with the manufacturer and the distributor and there are no defective condoms being recalled."

Stan Yagi, director of the Computing and Communications Services Office, said that the university officials had determined that the message had been generated from a computer off campus. Despite its misleading appearance, the message had not been generated using the mass mailing feature of the university’s e-mail system.

University officials were hoping that the Internet service provider used to distribute the message would cooperate with them in identifying the perpetrator of the hoax, Yagi said.