Right as I went crashing into my last book deadline, I got an email from a friend saying my voice was wanted in this MeFi thread, Publicizing HIV cases in the porn industry. I don’t know; some of the comments are spot-on and clarify quite a bit. Others, not so much…
While I was head-down writing and hiding out, a few days ago a recent HIV outbreak in California’s mainstream porn epicenter, SoCal’s Porn Valley hit the newswires (latimes.com). The reporting is all over the place. Opinions and emotions are high, as usual; I don’t know how many of you remember the last time there was a publicized outbreak. It was 2004, and while there was an “industry-wide” moratorium on work until everything was contained and performers all tested clean. I also remember going down to LA to film an educational episode for Sexcetera and listening to the (skanky) performers hired for the scene gossiping about how much *more* work they had because most others were *not* working. It created a scab economy. Ew. I know. The gossiping performers were clearly tweakers, and not representative of the industry, but it was interesting to see that (ir)responsible behavior was all over the map. Including that of mainstream press — in the mainstream media, the outbreak validated negative perceptions about porn and sexual safety.
Keep in mind that Southern California porn is a different world than NorCal porn. But because of AIM, testing is stringent and hardcore; enforcement is the issue. And that in 2004, remember that AIM Healthcare contained the outbreak, fast.
AIM Healthcare is pissed off, and want to make sure that (unlike last time) everyone’s got their shit together. Breaking: Porn industry clinic warns producers to authenticate STD test results. The best source for updates is Xbiz, with updates like AIM Takes Quarantined Performers Off Database — because it seems that ‘Patient Zero’ Worked With 37-Day-Old Test results. Also, check out AIM’s updates.
I have no idea what the scene is right now, but the official press release from Larry Flynt Productions is after the jump (also @ xbiz). It’s quite revealing if you’re following the story along at home. They seem to be saying that the LA Times is probably full of shit.
UPDATE: L.A. County backtracks on reports of porn HIV cases (latimes.com, via Eon)
LFP, Inc. Statement On HIV/AIDS Testing
Beverly Hills, California, June 15, 2009 – For years, the heterosexual adult entertainment industry production companies have been on the forefront of protecting adult actors from exposure to HIV/AIDs through a monthly testing program. This testing regimen has proven successful in keeping adult entertainers healthy during the course of their work. Other than a small outbreak in 2004—which was immediately contained—adult actors have been free of HIV/AIDS until the most recent single case reported last week.
While this newest exposure is obviously unfortunate, it is our understanding that the HIV/AIDs testing protocols were followed, resulting in the discovery of a positive test. Accordingly, the adult entertainment industry is now in a position to take the necessary steps to avoid any further exposure of other performers to this particular actress.
Concerning the reported—but unsubstantiated–claims of Los Angeles County public health officials that this actress’s case is the twenty-second reported case of an HIV infection in an adult performer since 2004, we have seen no documentation proving the accuracy of that claim. The known exposures affecting the heterosexual adult industry involved only the 2004 performers, and the most recent exposure involves a single actress. With respect to the remaining 16 positive HIV results the L.A. County public health officials have attributed to adult entertainers, we have no information actually connecting these individuals to the adult entertainment industry or proof that they ever performed for an adult production company, yet certain media sources have repeated this allegation anyway. AIM Healthcare tests not only performers, but also civilians outside the industry, and the additional cases claimed by public health officials could be those of individuals who sought private testing or who desired to obtain work in the adult industry but were precluded from doing so by positive HIV/AIDs results discovered by testing mandated by adult entertainment companies. Assuming that is the case, industry testing protocols may have benefited public health officials by alerting them to positive HIV results of which they would otherwise have remained ignorant.
Consequently, the adult entertainment companies will continue to adhere to the strict testing policies that have proven effective in protecting the health of the vast majority of their performers. These companies closely monitor the health of their actors and actresses, and if future developments warrant changes in the HIV/AIDs testing regimen that has worked well so far, they will continue to be sensitive to the protection of their performers’ health.
###
Owen Moogan
Press Relations
Flynt Management Group, LLC
Post image by randem.
I’m not sure if I buy Mr Greene’s claim that condom related vaginal abrasions
cause more health problems than unprotected sex, and I reject the idea that
the options are either condom use OR testing. Testing is needed because
condoms aren’t foolproof, and condoms are needed because testing isn’t
foolproof. Think of the women who wouldn’t be HIV positive today if Mark
Wallice had been required to wear condoms.
Or to put it another way, let’s say your boyfriend got stuck with contaminated needle and then took a PCR test two weeks later and it came up negative. Would you, on the strength of that test, begin having unprotected intercourse with him? If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t let you.
You’re just plain wrong on this, Lux. Read up on what sources outside the sex industry say about the PCR test. The PCR test is a rule in test, not a rule out test. It’s used to determine whether early aggressive treatment should begin, not to determine if a person is HIV-
http://www.avert.org/testing.htm
Even for this novel use of the PCR test, and even allowing 11 days, which is at the very lower threshold of detection for the PCR test, that means the person in question may have been HIV+ up to 11 days before her last negative test. Add to that the 37 days that elapsed before her first positive test, and that’s a 45 window at least.
At it’s very best a recent PCR test that shows HIV- suggests that a previous test was accurate. It says nothing about a persons current HIV status.
And of course HIV isn’t the only STD, is it?
The LA Times and the Gawker articles were very misleading.
From someone in the industry:
http://bppa.blogspot.com/2009/06/latest-hiv-in-porn-panic-rumor-control.html
Outis
I have to correct you on the 45 day thing. AIM uses PCR testing, which looks for the actual virus, not antibodies (the way Elisa and Western Blot tests do)–and as a result is vastly more useful for detecting recent infections. I believe 11 days is the outer limit for detection in this case.
Granted, using condoms is still a better idea, but the situation is not quite as catastrophic as you make it sound.
The high risk to performers of exposure to STDs in the manufacture of pornography is a simple fact, born out by AIM’s own data. Condoms, the single best way to reduce transmission, the method advocated by all sex educators for those who have sex with partners of unknown STD status is not a choice that is available to performers involved in the manufacture of straight pornography such as you or I would understand the meaning of the word “choice.”
But if that’s not reason enough for the “sex-positive community” to rethink its attitudes towards the “adult industry,” consider this.
In this latest incidence of HIV in the AIM talent pool, the individual in question went 37 days between tests. Due to the latency inherent in the testing, she may have been HIV positive for as long as 45 day or more before her infection was detected. If this infection had occurred in a male performer there almost certainly would have been secondary infection(s).
But more than that, sooner or later an HIV infection is going to cross from second generation to third generation, and instead of 3-5 on-set transmissions, there are going to be 20-30. This day is coming; it’s a statistical certainty. Anyone who thinks differently need only look at how well our nation’s finest “risk management experts” sized up their exposure to credit default swaps. And unlike AIG, there will be no government bailout for those effected.
Anyone who claims to have a stake in the debate about how sex is treated in our society has to look forward to the eventuality of future outbreaks and ask themselves, “When these HIV outbreaks happen, what do I want my record to look like? What do I want to be on the record as having said and as having done?”