Hey, AHF?? Do Condoms Prevent The Transmission Of Unionization Fever, Too?? (Or..How Neglecting Your True Mission Comes Back To Bite 'Ya)

You know...Malcolm X had this phrase about how chickens coming home to roost never made him sad.

Right about now, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is thusly waist deep in chicken poop...mostly of their own neglect.

You see, folks....AHF has been so busy buying performers and lobbying politicians and paying press hogs to sell their condom mandate, that they allowed their primary mission of actually treating people suffering from HIV/AIDS to kinda get stepped aside.

And now, they are reaping the whirlwind of their neglect...big time.  Stamped, with a union label.

I'll just let the Los Angeles Times (also reprinted over at The Real Porn Wikileaks) take it from here.

A group of medical providers at clinics run by an influential but controversial AIDS-focused nonprofit group have launched a bid to unionize, saying that the organization's leadership has lost sight of its mission and patient care is suffering.

Doctors, nurses and physicians assistants in the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Los Angeles and Bay Area clinics have been engaged in a behind-the-scenes struggle with the organization's leadership for the last two months.

On July 31, medical staff members submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board, announcing their desire to organize under the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

The foundation's leadership has contested the validity of the petition, saying that some of the employees involved in the union drive are supervisors not allowed to take part in union organizing.

The organization, with a budget of $750 million, runs a network of HIV and AIDS testing and treatment facilities around the world, as well as its own pharmacies. Its 10 clinics in the Los Angeles area serve more than 7,000 patients, many of them through contracts with the county.

Local providers say that those clinics are understaffed, that there is a lack of Spanish interpreters and that there has been a push to pack more patients into the schedule each day at the expense of quality care. They say their complaints have been disregarded and that the organization is focusing too much energy on political advocacy. Those include fights with the county and with the adult film industry over attempts to mandate condom use on set as a way to reduce exposure to social diseases.

Oh, gee....don't y'all know that $750M is chicken feed compared to the risks of HIV?? After all, how in the hell can AHF be so effective without paying the full costs of treatment for our propagandists such as Darren James or Derrick Burts or Cameron Bay and Rod Daily? How else can they be so successful at buying the votes of entire city/county legislatures, and even the California Assembly, or mount their coups against whole government agencies who don't kowtow to their company line on jamming condoms down the porn industry's throats??

After all, we all know that AHF would NEVER, EVER neglect their patients, would they?? Oh, wait...

"We support AHF's mission — that's why we're all here in the first place, but we feel like they're not really carrying out their mission," said Felipe Findley, a physician's assistant at the foundation's downtown clinic.

Kim Sommers, medical director at the organization's Hollywood center, recalled that one day the clinic was so over capacity that a patient suffering from chest pains was sent home by the lone over-stressed medical assistant on duty because no one was available to give him the electrocardiogram Sommers had ordered.

But, the absolutely hilarious part is Michael Weinstein's response to this potential raid on his gravy train.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation founder and President Michael Weinstein said the union process had been "tainted" by the involvement of middle managers.

"They've got an absolute right to form a union, but right now it's been organized by people in management, and they've put a lot of pressure on rank-and-file employees," he said. For their part, employees have filed complaints alleging that the executive leadership retaliated against them for their union activities.

Weinstein said the organization is indeed focused on patient care and that changes in scheduling policies were made because the organization had lost patients when they were unable to get follow-up appointments scheduled in a timely manner. He defended the organization's political activities as a core part of its mission.

"The advocacy is who we are, and I would argue that the advocacy we do has very much helped us to improve the care in our patient centers," he said.

Oh, great....the old "they're being brainwashed by outsiders" card used by right-wing union busters everywhere.

I wonder, would Assemblyman Isadore Hall approve of all this? He is a pretty damn liberal Democrat who took all of AHF's money and pushed their bills (unsucessfully), but I'm sure that he is proud to support unionization efforts of health care professionals, right?? 

Count this Lefty as in full support of the workers there for their efforts...and if by some chance they knock some sense in Weinstein's dome and cause him to rethink his mission of substituting condoms for actual care, so much the better. Solidarity Forever, and all that.

"Scoundrel Time" Redux: Ernest Greene's Response To Tristan Taormino's Condom About Face

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Why The Huffington Post's Kathleen Miles Could Use Some Classes In Journalism 101 (Or..How Shilling For AHF Can Fry Your Brain)

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HIV Porn Scare 2013: AHF Money Flips Cameron Bay, Rod Daily; Invents 2 New "Victims"

Remember when I concluded my last post here with the caveat about how long it would be before AHF would manufacture another crisis to sell the condom mandate??

Turned out...it would take less than 24 hours.

Today, AHF finally broke out its propaganda big stick and attempted to regain control of the STI's in porn narrative with an online press conference on the current situation....and, trust me on this, it was much more than the usual clown show.

Oh, Michael Weinstein was there with his usual pontificating BS about how the industry simply chews up and spits out performers, along with the usual lies and talking points. But this time, he brought him some backup.

As in....none other than Cameron Bay and Rod Daily themselves.

The former Cameron Adams shed the usual tears about how life changing her infection has been, and leveled some new charges based on that now infamous Public Disgrace shoot of July 31 for Kink.com, where she and Weinstein effective imply that they were infected with HIV. The newest charge is that the performer who engaged with Bay in that scene had cut the tip of his penis and bled, yet still continued to do the act with her without a condom. Never mind that Kink.com protocols allow a performer in a straight sex scene the option of requiring a condom...and also never mind that all the other performers involved in that scene tested negative for HIV prior to and immediately since that scene took place.

And as for Rod Daily??  He played the "good cop" side of the routine to a perfectly crossed "T",  speaking only positive and inspirating things about how condoms protected him from HIV even while he performed on the gay/TS side with openly infected performers. That's nice, but does that cover his off-screen activity? Or, the fact that, after having used the FSCPASS tests for years to document his sterling record of cleanliness, he all of a sudden went rogue in August and abandoned them for a non-PASS test that turned up positive? Or...maybe it was the fact that the FSCPASS tests went full panel, including tests for Hepatitis C, which caused his hesitation?

Now, Daily does have a preplanned excuse: he didn't want his test results "leaked". Which explains why he was so busy practically throwing his prior test unredacted at people prior to last July, right?? Then again, Weinstein (through his usual sockpuppets) was making noises at that time (and repeated the charge today) that Cameron Bay's test results had been breached by FSCPASS doctors...a charge that was publically denied by PASS and Cutting Edge Testing's Dr. Peter Mao.

But, apparently, flipping Cameron Bay and Rod Daily to the Dark Side by paying for their treatment and medication wasn't enough for Darth Weinstein, so he decided to break out two new victims to throw into the propaganda mix.

The first one was the infamous "Performer #4" that Weinstein had been hinting at since last week. ID'd only as "John Doe", P#4, who described himself as a crossover performer, testified that he had gotten infected sometime in the past six months. However, he refused to offer any other information on exactly when he was diagnosed or infected, or what tests flagged his infection. Most certainly, he never used the PASS testing regimen...and he offered no evidence or even charge that he was infected on an adult set.

The second new "victim" was a performer named Patrick Stone, who described himself as a gay porn model whom had shot on/off since 2010, including bareback scenes. His claim to fame here was that he was a part time performer for Kink.com's gay section (which, BTW, requires condoms), and that he was propositioned by Kink to perform a scene in mid-August, in between the two moratoriums imposed. But, like P#4, he clammed up on exactly what nature of a shoot it was (gay, hetero, or BDSM), or whether or not Kink knew of Stone's status when they offered him the shoot a week in advance. Plus, Stone prefaced his remarks with the revelation that his "infection" may in fact be a false positive.

Of course, you can't have any AHF propaganda conference without Derrick Burts and Darren James present to cheerlead...though one would wonder why Weinstein would continue to send these two out, considering their histories.

By now, the point of today's assault should be obvious: Weinstein wants to blow up the FSCPASS testing regimen as bogus and a failure (even inventing the hashtag #PASSFAIL) because it failed to flag the infection status of these five people. Thusly, according to such illogic, testing is a failure and no real protection...but condoms are a fail safe 100% means of protection because...well, it protected Rod Daily and Patrick Stone, well didn't it?

The problem, as always, for Weinstein and his associates is that the scoreboard still hasn't changed, regardless of their attempts to move the goalposts and buy ringers. Six hours after AHF began this latest charade of a press conference, the cold hard fact remains that every active performer who performed with Cameron Bay on set since her last clean test has come up negative for HIV. Every active performer who performed on Kink.com with either Cameron Bay or Rod Daily who was NOT HIV+ before then, is still not HIV+ since then.

And, if anything, this episode actually proves how valuable the system is, because just imagine what would have happened if Cameron Bay had NOT decided to take that PASS test in August, but had gone over to the same antibody test that Rod Daily and apparently the other "victims" had used. Suppose that test had missed her seroconversion and gone negative, and she and Daily had continued to shoot porn and otherwise engage in extracurricular activity unknowing that she was actually infected. Suppose that there had been no original moratorium to begin with due to the PASS system flagging the positive/reactive result and triggering the testing protocols.

Oh..and one last bit of thought: Cameron Bay had originally said in another interview that got transpired into a Huffington Post column (more on that bit of propaganda anon) that she was motivated to get tested in mid August by the brohaha over Andre Gorz and his Hepatitis C issues. For those of you who missed it, it was megaperformer Lisa Ann who blew the whistle on Gorz when she scheduled (then aborted) a shoot with him in order to force him to reveal his tests. The motivation for LA was that Gorz had all of a sudden disappeared from the approved FSCPASS "whitelist" of cleared performers during July due to his Hep C prognosis, yet he was still able to get shoots in spite of that.

To summarize: five performers who more than likely contracted HIV through either their own private extracurricular activity and/or took advantage of the different system of protection on the gay side of the industry, were sucessfully isolated and prevented from infecting other performers on the straight side unwittingly thanks to the PASS system of screening and testing. It is that system that Michael Weinstein and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation want to destroy in order to impose his condom mandate and make his fortune off strategically placed condom ads and paid endorsers.


Sources for this post:
XBiz report on today's AHF press conference
XBiz report on FSCPASS's response
The Real Porn Wikileaks blog response
Gram Ponante's response
Kink.com CEO Peter Acworth's response (via TRPWL) (via XBiz)

HIV Porn Scare 2013 - The Series Winds Down: FSCPASS Announces End Of Moratorium By Friday; New 14 Day Testing Regimen

Cross your fingers, because you never can tell what surprises may be in store...but it does look like things are winding down from the peak scare of earlier.

Last night, the Free Speech Coalition's Performer Availability Screening Services (FSCPASS) released their long awaited update on the state of the moratorium on shooting porn scenes that was reimposed on September 6 following the revelation of a third performer having confirmed to be infected with the HIV virus. That followed the lifting of the original moratorium based on the confirmation that perfomer Cameron Bay had been infected, and the further revelations that her boyfriend Rod Daily had announced that he too was HIV positive.

Essentially, the statement was a confirmation of previous results that all first generation sexual contacts of both Bay and the other as unamed performer had been tested and found to be clear and clean of any HIV infections, that they had found no proof that there had been any on-shoot transmissions, and that they were confident that any transmission of the virus had taken place through private extracurricular activity away from any porn set.

FSCPASS had also wanted to further investigate whether or not there had been any off-set interaction between Performer #3 and any of the talent....but the aformentioned performer decided to exercise her privacy rights and refused cooperation, as is her right to do so.

Given the information they did have, and the fact that the 14 day window of testing had passed without any new threat of infection, FSCPASS decided that it was now free to begin the process of lifting the moratorium.

However, there will be some conditions added on to the return of shooting...and some major changes in the testing protocols, too.

According to the statement by FSCPASS (reposted at XBiz.com), this coming Friday (September 19th) will be the day the moratorium is lifted and shooting can recommence. However, all performers will be required to undergo full panel testing beginning on Thursday, September 18th, and only those who test negative after that date will be cleared to commence shooting. In effect, the entire porn database is being rebooted, just like it was on August 19th in reaction to the original Cameron Bay infection news and the related syphilis scare of that month (which turned out to be a false positive).

The biggest change, however, is that FSCPASS will be henceforth imposing a mandatory 14 day testing period for all performers...a significant change from the 28 day regimen that was the standard prior to the latest HIV "outbreak". The 14 day window was chosen to coincide with the 7-10 day window of latency period provided by the Aptima RNA test that FSCPASS uses as its standard HIV test. The protocols also call for a follow up test 14 days following the original test for any firstgen performer who might be vulnerable to an infection if one is confirmed.

This change, if fully enacted, would be the closest to real-time HIV testing the industry has ever been. There are HIV tests out there that can promise results in 24 hours, but they are all more traditional antibody tests such as ELISA that have much longer latency periods (up to 60-90 days), and can often miss acute (new) HIV infections due to lack of seroconversion at its earliest stages. In addition, blood transfusions and certain medications can also mask the presence of HIV enough to throw off traditional tests. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, for example, uses ELISA as a base for their own HIV tests, which they offer at their clinics for free....though their stated position is that testing simply won't work anywhere as well as barrier protectants such as condoms.

In addition to that, FSCPASS also announced last night that they would initiate a performer education program which they would collaborate with doctors, workplace specialists, and performers. This is important because since the demise of the Adult Industry Medical Foundation, there has been no outreach by any porn production group on educating the talent on the risks of contracting STI's and what means could be utilized to avoid getting infected, or to seek aid and treatment if by some chance infection would occur. The most well known outreach prior to this time was the "Porn 101" video that AIM Foundation head Sharon Mitchell produced which featured promiment performers such as Nina Hartley, Jeanna Fine, and others educating new talent on the ways of protecting themselves. Perhaps it would be an excellent time for current FSCPASS head Diane Duke to meet with Nina and create another such educational tool??

All in all, it seems that FSCPASS has atoned itself pretty well for what many say was a huge error in lifting the original moratorium prematurely. Of course, there are those who will reject any move by them as too little and too late, for their own reasons and concerns, but one cannot deny that they certainly acted to defuse the ticking time bomb. Question is....will it be enough when AHF invents and creates the next porn scare......errrrr, when the next crisis inevitably hits?

As always, we'll be watching. Wherever they go, we will follow....too.

HIV Porn Scare Update #2: Proposed Condom Mandate Bill AB640 Follows AB332 Down File 86 For 2013 Cali Assembly Session

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HIV Porn Scare 2013 Update (Part 1): Outbreak?? What Outbreak?? Still NO On-Shoot Infections Found

Earlier this week, when it was first broken that a third performer other than Cameron Bay and her boyfriend Rod Daily had been found to be infected with HIV, it sure looked as if the porn world was in extreme disarray. Calls for mandatory condom usage were being shouted from the rooftops from far more than the usual suspects like the AIDS Healthcare Foundation or their newly discovered BFF's like "President" Rob Black and Mike South, but from even some respectable voices from within the industry.

But, as usual with these things, the wisdom of staying calm and waiting for actual events has proven to be as beneficial as always.

On Wednesday, the Free Speech Coalition's Performer Accessibility Screening Services (PASS, or FSCPASS) issued a statement updating their talent base on the process of testing protocols for Performer #3. As of then, they had concluded testing on all of P#3's first generation contacts, and all tests had been found to be negative regarding HIV status.

The statement also addressed the report of a possible fourth performer infected with HIV, based upon comments by AHF head Michael Weinstein that were leaked to both the British journal The Guardian and to the US-based gossip site The Daily Sword. According to them, there was no confirmation of any other performer infected, and the source should be highly questioned based on the propaganda motives of AHF.

A bit more intriguing was that later that day, The Real Porn Wikileaks posted their own exclusive, containing a rough timeline based on their investigations of the brief career of P#3 and her intimate relationship both professional and personal with Bay and Daily. All signs there point to what amounts to be an isolated incident of extracurricular activity and just plain bad luck.

Despite all that, FSCPASS announced that they would delay lifting the moratorium on porn production until their follow up investigation was completed regarding any off-set contacts with any of the three infected performers.

Their position was further strengthened by what could be considered a surprising source, given their history: the porn talent agency ATMLA issued their own statement regarding P#3 (whom was contracted through their agency) verifying FSCPASS' results and supporting the overall testing regime, as well as asking everyone to respect the privacy of all the performers who have been infected.

All of this lends serious credence to the comments that Immoral Productions head "Porno Dan" Leal posted to his Facebook page this week:

It is very clear that these transmissions occurred off camera and that if these people did not try and do porn scenes they probably would not know they have HIV.

No one in the adult industry industry got HIV on set; furthermore these three individuals with HIV now know they have it because of porn and will not spread it others.

Porn is not blame for what people do off camera and in this instance helped save lives.

In short, the FSCPASS system may have actually prevented a wider HIV outbreak not only in porn, but in real life. But, we all know that "testing isn't prevention"....right, Mr. Weinstein??

[And there's more to this story.....continued in Part 2.]

Nina Hartley Speaks Out On The Latest HIV Porn Scare (Or...How Truth Is The Only Lysol For Rumor And BS)

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