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The number of walk-ins for HIV testing more than doubled in Detroit a day after local news reports appeared of a woman who falsely claimed over the Internet to have infected more than 500 people with the virus, city health officials said. Police said she admitted the story was a hoax. But as of 1 pm, 16 people had walked into the only city clinic where HIV testing is done and were tested, Michael mcelrath, spokesman for the Detroit Department of Health and Wellness, told The Associated Press. The clinic is open Monday through Friday and typically gets seven walk-ins per day, he said. Because all information is confidential, people seeking testing were not required to say why or whether it was in response to the woman's claims. The woman identified herself Friday to The Detroit News as 23-year-old Jackie Braxton, mother of a 5-year-old daughter. The AP tried several times to reach her by phone Friday, but she did not answer and her voicemail box was full. "I don't have AIDS," Braxton told The Detroit News. "I made the tape because I wanted to raise awareness about AIDS." The gossip Web site mediatakeout.com was the first to report on the hoax and posted an 11-minute video of the woman that the site also put on youtube. The Detroit News and other local media outlets then picked up on the story. On the video, the woman said she contracted HIV in 1998 and has been "pretty upset" about having to "suffer," and has set out to "destroy the world" because a cure for the virus that <b>...</b> |
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