Get HIV in the cinemas!

I don't normally post spam/forward them around but this one sounds quite serious when my department lecturer started forwarding it to the General Office with a concerned note asking the secretary to forward it to students:

Subject: FW: Urgent message received from LST Could you please cascade as quickly as possible as this came through our NHS web page. For your information, a couple of weeks ago, in the odeon cinema, Festival Park, a person sat on something sharp in one of the seats. When she stood up to see what it was, a needle was found poking through the seat with an attached note saying, "you have been infected with HIV". The Centres for Disease Control in Birmingham, reports similar events Have taken place in several other cities recently. ALL of the needles tested HAVE been found positive for HIV. The CDC also reports that needles have been found in the coin return areas of pay phones and coke machines. Everyone is asked to use extreme caution when confronted with these types of situations. All public chairs should be thoroughly but safely inspected prior to any use. A thorough visual inspection is considered the bare minimum. Further more, they ask that everyone notify their family members and friends of the potential dangers, as well. The previous information was sent from hanley police station to all of the local councils in the Staffs area and was interdepartmentally dispersed.

We were all asked to pass this to as many people as possible.

Paul McCarrick District Health and Safety Officer Greater Manchester East Middleton DO

Anyway, being the skeptical me, I searched Google and found this:

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/pinprick.asp

and this:

http://www.cdc.gov/doc.do/id/0900f3ec80226b9c

So, it's up to you if you wanna believe it or not, but I'll definitely check my seat before sitting down next time =)