Hello,
I'm new to the JUB forums, although definitely not new to this site in general
I'm the developer of the service being discussed. I saw this post from our server referral logs, and just wanted to clear a few things up. I don't know hello2all and he doesn't work for us (although we have run into each other on the internets before).
I'm based in Minneapolis and San Francisco, and the founder/business guy is in Los Angeles. I'm an epidemiologist-turned-developer, and worked for the largest HIV clinic in Minnesota, as well as serve on a number of public health bodies. I became incredibly frustrated at the direction HIV prevention is going (i.e., nowhere), and that served as my impetus for joining this team.
We confirm HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HAV vaccination status, and HPV vaccination status. We display how long ago you were tested, and your test results expire after a year. When you were tested is a critical piece of the puzzle that is often missing (obviously, a test yesterday is better than a test 11 months ago). In addition, we confirm the type of test, which also can drastically affect the window period (e.g., an HIV PCR test has a smaller window period than an antibody test).
This works through a HIPAA authorization. When you sign up, you indicate where you were tested, and sign an authorization form. We fax that to the clinic on your behalf, and receive and process their response. At that point, your results are no longer covered by HIPAA, and they can be disseminated however you like.
The HIPAA authorization is a legal document, and falsifying your information is a federal crime. Similarly, a health care professional lying about test results is unethical and potentially illegal. Bad people are going to bad things... but, chances are they were doing bad things before our service existed.
We NEVER talk about being "clean". That implies someone with HIV or an STD is "dirty", and we simply don't believe that. For people living with HIV, we will also confirm their last viral load. HIV-positive people deserve to have sex too, and we're hoping we can break down some of the stigma by allowing people to share their viral load. An undetectable viral load poses much less risk than a very high viral load. So, with better education and information, perhaps our tool can help everyone have more sex more safely.
Everybody has different tools that they use to keep themselves (and their partners) safe. This might include condoms, strategic positioning, serosorting, limiting your number of partners, etc. Each strategy comes with their own sets of risks and benefits (and, certainly, some are MUCH more effective than others). However, if everybody always treated every one of their sex partners as if they had HIV or an STD, then nobody would ever get either. And yet, HIV rates in men who have sex with men aren't going down. Our service isn't foolproof, and it certainly isn't a replacement for other strategies. It is, however, a tool in the toolbox.
If you're on any gay dating/sex site, you've probably noticed that there's a "HIV Status" section. This is self-reported, and most likely inaccurate... I'm sure that we all have an ex that has never been tested for HIV but still claims to be HIV-negative on those sites. People already sort based on HIV-status... it's just horribly unreliable, and a false sense of security. Again, our service is not foolproof, but it's a huge leap forward from the status quo.
We don't make money. I mean, we'd like to make money, but right now everything is free. I don't foresee the service ever costing money for the users, since that just doesn't make sense (why would you pay for a service that's benefiting your sexual partners). There are a couple of business models floating around out there, and they're all based on finding other people to subsidize the HIV/STD confirmation portion of our service.
I'm happy to answer questions, take criticisms, etc. I'm also happy to share my results with you guys, so you can see how it works. I'm more interested in having an informed dialoge about our service than recruiting new members... so, I'll respect the mods and rules, and not be too commercial
I'm new to the JUB forums, although definitely not new to this site in general
I'm the developer of the service being discussed. I saw this post from our server referral logs, and just wanted to clear a few things up. I don't know hello2all and he doesn't work for us (although we have run into each other on the internets before).
I'm based in Minneapolis and San Francisco, and the founder/business guy is in Los Angeles. I'm an epidemiologist-turned-developer, and worked for the largest HIV clinic in Minnesota, as well as serve on a number of public health bodies. I became incredibly frustrated at the direction HIV prevention is going (i.e., nowhere), and that served as my impetus for joining this team.
We confirm HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HAV vaccination status, and HPV vaccination status. We display how long ago you were tested, and your test results expire after a year. When you were tested is a critical piece of the puzzle that is often missing (obviously, a test yesterday is better than a test 11 months ago). In addition, we confirm the type of test, which also can drastically affect the window period (e.g., an HIV PCR test has a smaller window period than an antibody test).
This works through a HIPAA authorization. When you sign up, you indicate where you were tested, and sign an authorization form. We fax that to the clinic on your behalf, and receive and process their response. At that point, your results are no longer covered by HIPAA, and they can be disseminated however you like.
The HIPAA authorization is a legal document, and falsifying your information is a federal crime. Similarly, a health care professional lying about test results is unethical and potentially illegal. Bad people are going to bad things... but, chances are they were doing bad things before our service existed.
We NEVER talk about being "clean". That implies someone with HIV or an STD is "dirty", and we simply don't believe that. For people living with HIV, we will also confirm their last viral load. HIV-positive people deserve to have sex too, and we're hoping we can break down some of the stigma by allowing people to share their viral load. An undetectable viral load poses much less risk than a very high viral load. So, with better education and information, perhaps our tool can help everyone have more sex more safely.
Everybody has different tools that they use to keep themselves (and their partners) safe. This might include condoms, strategic positioning, serosorting, limiting your number of partners, etc. Each strategy comes with their own sets of risks and benefits (and, certainly, some are MUCH more effective than others). However, if everybody always treated every one of their sex partners as if they had HIV or an STD, then nobody would ever get either. And yet, HIV rates in men who have sex with men aren't going down. Our service isn't foolproof, and it certainly isn't a replacement for other strategies. It is, however, a tool in the toolbox.
If you're on any gay dating/sex site, you've probably noticed that there's a "HIV Status" section. This is self-reported, and most likely inaccurate... I'm sure that we all have an ex that has never been tested for HIV but still claims to be HIV-negative on those sites. People already sort based on HIV-status... it's just horribly unreliable, and a false sense of security. Again, our service is not foolproof, but it's a huge leap forward from the status quo.
We don't make money. I mean, we'd like to make money, but right now everything is free. I don't foresee the service ever costing money for the users, since that just doesn't make sense (why would you pay for a service that's benefiting your sexual partners). There are a couple of business models floating around out there, and they're all based on finding other people to subsidize the HIV/STD confirmation portion of our service.
I'm happy to answer questions, take criticisms, etc. I'm also happy to share my results with you guys, so you can see how it works. I'm more interested in having an informed dialoge about our service than recruiting new members... so, I'll respect the mods and rules, and not be too commercial
I check about once a week, and it just so happened to be this morning. I can't help how it looks, but I trust that if you take a look at your server logs and registration information you'll see that we're different people. When I signed up, he hadn't been banned. That occurred between when I signed up and when I submitted my post. 
