Beer Pong's Unforseen, Unanticipated Consequences.... Herpes!
The venerable game of beer pong is a staple at most college campuses -- a quick ticket to the kind of glory that can only come from drunkenly tossing a ping-pong ball into a red plastic cup.
But beer pong could be nearly as dangerous as unprotected sex in terms of spreading diseases, according to a recent article in the University of Massachusetts' student newspaper -- which links the rise of herpes on campus to the popularity of beer pong. Because the game involves multiple people drinking from the same cups, the herpes virus -- which can be transmitted via saliva -- can be spread to everyone who is playing through the course of a game. The virus is up 230 percent since 2007 in people between ages 17 and 21.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends filling the cups with water for the game -- and drinking from non-shared cups -- as a way of decreasing the danger, but a UMass sophomore makes the point that such play "takes away from the spirit of the game."
We're all for purity in sports, but if we're going to drink so much we end up with a sexually transmitted disease, we'd at least like it to be the result of something more fun than swallowing our frat buddy's backwash.
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