The Big Lie Campaign For Measure B Ends With The Grandmama Of All Lies: The "Porn Stars Have More STI's Than Nevada Hookers" Smear

Tomorrow is Election Day, folks...and while most of the country will be busy enough with the spectacle that has been the Presidential campaign, folks in LA County will be putting the fate of the local adult industry literally in their hands with the proposed condom mandate proposal Measure B.

I have to say that whatever doubts I had about James Lee and the Citizens Against Government Waste have been absolutely doused by the yeoman efforts he and his group have done in leading the opposition to this proposal. With not much time and with a fraction of the budget that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has to pour into the pro-B campaign, and with none of the organized support of the political establishment in LA County (save for the opposition by the local Republican and Libertarian parties), they have done a tremendous job of raising awareness and organizing performers to defend their rights. I tip my hat to you for that, win or lose.

Plus....gotta do a shoutout for Sean Tompkins over at The Real Porn Wikileaks, Michael Whiteacre, Mark Kernes, Dr. Chauntelle Tibalis, Lydia Lee, Steven St. Croix, Kylie Ireland, Kayden Kross, Amber Lynn, Tanya Tate, Rebecca Bordeaux, Maggie Mayhem, and a whole host of other producers, performers, reporters, and other assorted glitterati for their efforts in educating the public on this legislation and how it will basically destroy the industry without any positive impacts on actual STI infections. It's amazing how political ideology tends to melt away when faced with a shared threat from outside.

It is to the measure of the principled opposition to Measure B that the proponents have been forced to engage in nothing less than distortions of facts and outright lies and cooking up of stats in order to sell their vision of a condomized industry "protecting" performers while driving them underground into less safe parameters and venues.

But, nothing beats the desperate final flail that AHF attempted to pull on the public this last weekend.

On last Friday, AHF and their champions at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health released their contraption of a "study" of infection rates of porn performers during the past 11 months; concluding that the rate of infection for chlamydia and gonnorhea among performers was greater than not only the infection rate amongst LA County citizens as a whole, but also greater than the rate of infection of prostitutes working in Nevada's legalized brothels.

The study was released by an organization calling itself the American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association; and while the complete report is hidden behind a paywall, the abstract of the report pretty much gives away the ideological bias (bolding added for emphasis):

Background: Undiagnosed sexually transmitted infections (STIs) may be common in the adult film industry because performers frequently engage in unprotected oral and anal intercourse, STIs are often asymptomatic, and the industry relies on urine-based testing.

Methods: Between mid-May and mid-September 2010, a consecutive sample of adult film industry performers recruited from a clinic in Los Angeles, California, that provides medical care to performers was offered oropharyngeal, rectal, and urogenital testing for Gonorrhea, and rectal and urogenital testing for Chlamydia.

Results: During the 4-month study period, 168 participants were enrolled: 112 (67%) were female and 56 (33%) were male. Of the 47 (28%) who tested positive for Gonorrhea and/or Chlamydia, 11 (23%) cases had been detected through urogenital testing alone. Gonorrhea was the most common STI (42/168; 25%) and the oropharynx the most common site of infection (37/47; 79%). Thirty-five (95%) oropharyngeal and 21 (91%) rectal infections were asymptomatic. Few participants reported using condoms consistently while performing or with their personal sex partners.

Conclusions: Adult film industry performers had a high burden of STIs. Undiagnosed asymptomatic rectal and oropharyngeal STIs were common and are likely reservoirs for transmission to sexual partners inside and outside the workplace. Performers should be tested at all anatomical sites irrespective of symptoms, and condom use should be enforced to protect workers in this industry.

Keep in mind that this study was taken during four months during 2010, when the main testing agency at that time for the industry, the Adult Industry Medical Foundation (AIM), was under attack by the very forces (namely, AHF and the LA County DPH) now saying that their testing procedures were (and by extension, those of the newly formed APHSS system are) totally inadequate for detecting and treating STI's, and that only mandatory condom usage and other forms of compulsory "barrier protection" would offer the highest form of "protection" for performers.

Even without that caveat, the holes in this argument can be spotted, and are enough to drive a whole fleet of Mack trucks through.

First off, 47 of 168 performers testing positive for chlamydia or gonnorhea still leaves 121 performers (72%) who tested clean of those STI's. In short, in a supposed "high-risk" industry where porn performers are assumed to be mindless sluts who fuck and suck anything that moves, 7 out of every 10 performers still manage to protect themselves and stay disease free without the need for condoms. Wouldn't you think that if testing was as much a failure as this study would assume, the rate of infection would be far greater than that??

Plus, as Michael Whiteacre has noted repeatedly, this "study" gives no background on whether those performers who were infected got infected on set during scenes, or through outside activities...or, whether they actually did perform scenes after their infections were caught. And, it may be that many of those who were tested and found to be infected didn't even perform any scenes until they were adequately treated, or were people just entering the industry engaged in their first test.

There's also the possibility of the same performer being tested multiple times in the same period through repeated follow-up testing, but being counted as seperate and distinct infections for the purpose of deliberate cooking of the stats to beef up the ideological case. Goodness knows, AHF and the Condom Nazis over at LACDPH aren't known for that, now aren't they??

Then, there is the distortion about the method of testing involved. The current testing regimen (and the former one used by AIM) utilizes urine sampling for their testing of chlamydia and gonnorhea (with oral swabbing available upon request of the tested performer); yet the "study" claimed that the system was flawed by not detecting oral or anal infection via swabbing of the throats or anuses of performers. At best, it's a call for broadening such testing to include oral and anal swabbing; but, that's not what AHF and LACDPH paid the producers of that "study" to promote; so, they just use that stat as just another club to slam the industry into compliance with the condom mandate.

Or, as Hymes and Kernes points out succintly in their debunking of the AHF/ASTDA "study":

Perhaps worst of all, the study is utterly disingenuous when it describes how and when performers get tested. Fully cognizant of the fact that performers are not allowed to perform on the overwhelming majority of porn sets without a valid test that is no more than 28 (or 14, depending on the studio) days old, the authors nonetheless included in their study 51 performers—nearly one-third of all performers tested—who had not worked in an adult film for more than 30 days, making the time and place of their exposure impossible to pin down, and very likely not on an adult film set at all.

That percentage is extraordinarily important, considering that of the 168 "adult performers" who took part in this study, only 47 (28 percent) had at least one undiagnosed STD—and that's 2 percent less than the number of performers (30 percent) who hadn't made a movie in at least 30 days, and whose infections, if they had sought film work while still infected, might very well have been caught by the normal industry testing, especially if they had any specific complaints and requested that an (optional) oral swab be taken and tested.

And also keep in mind that many performers even require a clean test as recent as 2-3 days before they accept someone to perform sex scenes with...so if anything, the industry is even more stringent about screening for STI's than even the 14/28 day period that is the "gold standard". In other words, how many of the 48% who were found to be infected were also part of the 33% who had not performed for at least 30 days prior to getting tested? Again, this may support expanding testing to better catch orally and anally based infections, but that's not on the scope of AHF's agenda..so it's simply ignored in favor of pushing Measure B. Nice diversion there, Mike Weinstein.

The main distortion, though, that has gotten the attention of the media, is the comparison of porn performers in LA County with Nevada brothel sex workers, who are claimed to be much, much safer due to the wonders of mandated condoms and government regulation.

Problem is, though, that in Nevada brothels, it is the clients who are required to use condoms, not the sex workers themselves. Also, the prostitutes who work in the brothels are subjected to far greater regulatory scrutiny while they work there; including far-reaching restrictions on whom they can have sex within their workplace, and strong discouragement of sexual activities outside of the brothel. Plus, they are screened for disease even before they are even allowed to work in the brothels to begin with. You simply can't compare them to porn performers, who do happen to have outside personal sex lives and, outside of their occupation, do in fact have intimate and personal sex lives.

Unless, of course, you are under the misimpression and assumption that by fiat ALL porn performers are by definition the embodiment of the caricature of the late and dearly departed John Holmes: namely, mindless promiscuous sluts who can't think of anything more than where their next daily or hourly serving of dick or pussy comes from, until they are either claimed by "the wages of sin" that inevitably comes with defying God (or the Goddess) or find the religion of Shelley Lubben (or Gail Dines) and "save themselves".


Nevertheless, the publicity accomodating the "study" has had some impact on some public opinions...in particular some progressive personalities whom had originally came out against Measure B. One in particular is Ana Kasparian, blogger and YouTube diarist connected with Cenk Uygur's popular progressive network The Young Turks, whom originally came out opposed to Measure B last week in a video..but was convinced to flip to the other side by one of her colleagues, Jayar Jackson, following the release of the AHF/ASTDA "study" via the Huffington Post.

This is in spite of the fact that contrary to the notion of porn being a right-wing libertarian outlet of "rugged individualism", there is actually a genuine diversity of political ideological positions within the community of porn performers and producers. For every Jenna Jameson or John Stagliano, you will find a Nina Hartley or an Amber Lynn; there are quite a few porn performers and producers who are staunch liberals/progressives or even centrists as there are "libertarian conservatives". Of course, personal political ideology should not affect the quality or the merits of the arguments for or against Measure B; but the fact that so few progressives have seen fit to even take a stand for or against this initiative speaks wonders about the broader Left's lack of education or commitment on core issues of sexual freedom, sexual civil liberties, and respect for personal choice. (A strong criticism of the TYT turnaround and of the "study" can be found here.)

The other blowback from this "study" is the newly created propaganda campaign by some of the original propaganda boosters of the condom mandate to distort the claims of the opposition and launch personal adhominen attacks on their opponents. One such propagandist is Tim Tirch, who has been well known for his drive-by slanders against all who oppose the AHF agenda, and whom had actually been exposed as a serial troll who menaced blogs picking fights with particular condom opponents. Over at Cindi Loftus' Luke Is Back blog, a commentor ID'd as "XXXMed" (and whom is suspected to be Tirch) has been posting guest editorial posts maligning opponents of Measure B with, shall we say, very personal attacks. One such editorial went after Nina Hartley and her husband Ernest Greene (whom, as you know, is a frequent contributor to BPPA and one of the principled opponents of the condom mandate) for hypocrisy in their current stances, since they were during the 1990s both advocates of condom usage. (That Nina and Ernest's stance back then was predicated on the lack of a testing and screening system for STI's that does exist today, and that both have consistently defended the voluntary use of condoms as well as the discouragement of more high-risk sexual acts more suspectible to STI's, seems to escape the synapses of this fool.) More recently, "XXXMed" has been involved in an exchange of posts with Mark Kernes in which the former has defended the AHF/ASTDA study as legitimate proof for mandating condoms, implying that Kernes has been "trivializing" the rate of STI's among female porn performers, and that he slandered a rival testing agency to AIM by implying that they were the source of performer tests in the aformentioned study. (One of the authors of that "study" just so happened to be the founder and lead doctor of that testing agency.  See the original Kernes story for background.)

But, the greatest revelation about this latest final propaganda push is how it reveals the shifting goalposts of the condom mandate campaign, and how it conflates different STI's for blatant propaganda purposes.

Remember that the main spokespeople for Measure B just so happen to be the last two performers who happened to contract HIV...namely, Darren James and Derrick Burts. Of course, the fact that there has been NO instance since 2004 of HIV being transmitted on set by a porn shoot in LA County (remember, Burts has admitted he was infected in a Florida gay male set where condoms were actually used; and James has been reported to have been infected on a trip to Brazil just prior to the infamous shoot where 4 other performers were infected with him) really messes up the meme of an HIV pandemic. So, here comes Plan B: expand the STI "panic" to include other infections like chlamydia and gonnorhea, which were tested as part of the former AIM regimen....except that unless you cook the books to invent multiple infections, you can't prove that that exists, either. So, onward to Plan C: simply invent a crisis by implying the lack of testing of other STI's such as Hepatitis C or HPV or herpes, and then scream about how the "pornographers" are putting wimmen's lives AT RISK because they care more about their money or the "selfishness" of the consumers than about public safety. (Because, of course, the lives of gay men who already suffer from STI's in spite of already using condoms is inmaterial to the proponents of Measure B.) And, if all that fails, exploit the recent syphilis scare to seal the deal...never mind that syphilis can be easily spread even with a condom through mouth sores that condoms can't even cover.

Note also the essential fact that unlike HIV (or herpes or HPV) chlamydia and gonnorhea are mostly asymptommatic infections, in which those infected usually don't even notice any known symptoms of the infections (sores, rashes, pain, swelling, etc.) Therefore, you really can't even tell if you even have the infection until it shows up in testing. The fact that most of those in the study who were infected were also found to be asymptommatic raises a real question about the entire logic of the study: How could they know that those 3 out of 10 performers who were infected actually were infected on the job?? Or, do they just ASSUME that they are, in order to justify their premade biases and conclusions?

It simply shows that ultimately, underneath all the flowery cover of "concern" about "protecting performers" and all the firery rhetoric about "the pornographers", it all comes back to the same pile of bullshit that sex workers have had to endure for far too long. The essential argument of Measure B proponents can be reduced to this:Porn performers who don't dance to our tune are simply too stupid or too slutty to be able to fend for themselves as consenting adults, so we saviors of the State just have to act as their virtual parents and save them ourselves through condoms. Oh, and make us a shitload of money through packaging of condom sales and buying off whole government agincies, too...because what sells better than "safer sex"??

Again, people of Los Angeles County, please don't fall for this nonsense.

I'll leave you here with Michael Whiteacre's comment response to another attempt to distort the record.

That’s right – an old misanthrope in Georgia who can’t even spell “y’all” correctly (and who still contends that AIM made a $90 profit on a $110 / 120 test) has all the answers about the L.A. porn industry.

What the hillbilly Phony Libertarian does’t seem to grasp is that we Americans have certain inalienable rights and liberties by default. Those defending their rights against an attack need not convince anyone of anything. The legal BURDEN is on those trying to infringe upon those rights to establish the requisite state interest.

Every issue, every controversy of public consequence, is a balancing act in which the pro’s and con’s must be weighed. Competing interests must be balanced.

However Michael Weinstein is an authoritarian with an absolutely totalitarian worldview. To him there are no competing interests — you can hear it in his rhetoric: this is “simply” a matter of workplace safety, or public health, or whatever. He will not deign to consider any arguments about counterbalancing, and he brooks no dissent.

When it comes to people’s rights, to constitutionally protected liberties – he doesn’t wanna hear about it. The first amendment, and the liberties protected under Lawrence v. Texas, DO NOT MATTER to him — he doesn’t even think they’re part of the calculus. Weinstein is totally single-minded — as all authoritarians and fascist dictators are. He TELLS US what the problem is, and he prescribes the solution by decree.

And stooges like Mike South HAND THE WEINSTEINS OF THE WORLD THE ARGUMENT.

1) In order for the government to act, to restrict people’s CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED AND PROTECTED rights and liberties, the government must demonstrate a state interest.


2) The government ONLY has an interest in things it can PROVE.
It is essential to understand these two points.
AHF is attempting to use workplace safety laws as the means to attack the adult industry, and to infringe upon the rights of performers and producers, but AHF clearly lacks a clear understanding of how these rules work as a matter of law.
If a performer who its a sexually active person has contracted a common STI such chlamydia, gonorrhea, HPV or herpes, there is NO WAY to prove that it was contracted on set. These infections are comparable to the flu. Only rare infections, things such as the HIV virus, can be traced to a patient zero.
In the end, all that this new study shows is that, x number of performers sought testing / treatment over that 4-month period. The data does NOT show what IF ANY number of performers WORKED while infected, or contracted an STI while AT WORK. The authors ask voters to ASSUME that these infections may all be traced to workplace exposures — and the fact that AHF and the authors of this study have made the comparison to STI rates among Nevada brothel workers is also instructive.
Nevada brothel workers often live on the premises and, per the house rules, are prohibited from having sex outside the prostitute/client relationship. In this regard they represent a separate and distinct population from the surrounding general population, much like the incarcerated, or military personnel confined to a base.
Adult performers, by contrast, are not a population separate and distinct from the rest of the population. Performers are a SUBSET of the general population. LA County performers are members of the population of LA County. They interact with the rest of the population, as well as with each other, off set.
Regardless of one’s profession, NO test can demonstrate that a common infection was contracted by a sexually active adult at work. Correlation does not equal causation. If the government cannot prove that work was the cause, it lacks the requisite state interest to ban an entire type of work.

And remember, Clones...this isn't just for porn sets, either; it's for webcammers, homemade porn sites..even married couples making porn vids for their own pleasure. In other words, it's about EVERYONE.

I don't need to say it, but I'll say at anyway, Los Angeles County peeps...Vote NO on Measure B. Don't let these fascist lying bastards win.

Porn Panic 2012: The UCLA/Talent Testing Services Sexual Health Study: Empirical Research Or An AHF/Cal-OSHA Blindside For The Porn Industry??

Well, now....the Porn Testing Wars just got a new and ultimately interesting twist this weekend. As if the breakdown of the compromise between the Free Speech Coalition/Adult Performer Health and Safety Services and Talent Testing Services wasn't enough of a twist already.

Talent Testing, you will recall, reported last week that they would now back completely out of the compromise that they reached with APHSS, where they would share their test results with the database that APHSS uses to notify performers and producers of porn of their clearance to shoot scenes.  Basically, they cited incompatability with the protocols required by APHSS, including the requirement of a doctor on staff to verify test results and notify performers who are at risk for positive STI infection, as well as the need to maintain their "independence" from production companies such as Manwin, whom had essentially funded and backed the APHSS standards and protocols, and even offered to repatriate some of the costs of testing for performers. Mostly, though, they were opposed to joining APHSS on the concern that the latter group was, to their eyes, only a fundraising shakedown for the Free Speech Coalition, and biased towards a competing testing group, Cutting Edge Testing, that was formed out of the charred ashes of AIM -- the original testing group that was ridden out of LA in 2010 as part of the campaign to impose condoms in porn -- and whom was fully within the APHSS protocols.

Given the timing of all this happening while the Los Angeles County condom mandate is still being prepared for a November vote, one can marvel at the way that the industry is eating itself at precisely the wrong time.

However, a new and intriguing outside source has intervened to further stir things up a bit.

On Saturday, Talent Testing Services announced that they would participate in a sexual health survey hosted by the University of Cailfornia at Los Angeles (UCLA), in which they would offer their clients incentives (such as discounts on testing and free followup care) to participate in the survey. Essentially, any performer participating in the survey would have to sign a waiver giving UCLA the right to use their information (I assume with names removed for privacy protection) from their tests in whatever way they see fit.

That wouldn't be too much of an issue...except for one inconvenient fact: UCLA has also been the home of some of the more strident and openly hostle advocates of the condom mandate.  In particular, UCLA  - though its Reproductive Health Interest Group - has hosted seminars on performer testing and condoms in porn that have degenerated into nothing more than glorified press conferences for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the LA County Department of Public Health, Cal-OSHA, and other groups seeking to impose "barrier protections" in porn. (One such seminar even allowed Shelley Lubben to become the default "repesentative" of porn performers, while totally freezing out active performers who weren't so zealous towards the condom mandate and willing to torch the industry for its supposed mistreatment and "abandonment" of its talent.)

So, the question remains: Why would Talent Testing knowingly ally themselves with an organization which has openly abetted the agenda of AHF and would ultimately seek to undercut the industry??

At his latest post over at Adult Legal Blog, Michael Fattorosi weighs in one factor that may count: $$$$$:

There is a third potential possibility as well. Many people are now starting to understand that information is worth money. Data mining is a big time business in this world. STI testing results are indeed worth money to the United States government as well as corporations developing new drugs for STIs.

[...]

Performers wanting to receive a $40 gift card and free follow up STI medical care can participate in the study. Which essentially means that UCLA will have the right to their test results and medical care to use as part of their study – in essence a performer waives their right of privacy in so much that the information will could be sold. I am sure this information will be sanitized – meaning names will be removed since UCLA probably doesn’t care about a performer’s name or identifying information – rather UCLA cares about the empirical data – how often one tests, how often one catches an STI, the treatment received for such, how long the treatment lasted and how effective the results of the treatment were. That could be a data goldmine for a drug company trying to develop the next anti-biotic to fight any one of the many STIs on the planet.

How much can a group or organization receive for this type of information ? According to the link I posted to the National Institutes of Health’s grant overview information website, there is no limit. However if you want more than $500,000.00 you have to call the NIH directly. Apparently you cannot just email the application for a grant requests at that level.

I am not saying that Talent Testing Services received the grant themselves, however it does appear that UCLA has indeed received grant money for the study of STIs. The performers present a very unique situation in the world when it comes to STI research. I am going to bet that no where else in the United States does a group of people test for and possibly contract STIs as much as performers do in porn. And now that the testing cycle is being pushed to every 14 days, the amount of information is only going to increase and therefore the potential gold mine of data will increase in value as well.

As I tweeted, “there is gold in them thar HIV tests!”

 But as usual, I have a much darker, less pliable motive in play. Remember that UCLA has been all in with the AHF and Cal-OSHA throughout the entire condom mandate, and AHF has had no qualms in using underhanded tactics in using and acquiring performer records (whether it be using lawsuits to force AIM to hand over personal and private medical information, to using LACDPH staff to go to performers' houses with syringes seeking live blood samples, to exploiting both private message boards and underground sites like the original Porn Wikileaks in order to use private performers' medical records for their own cause). There's nothing that says that there wasn't some grease applied by AHF to get UCLA their grant for this study, and nothing says that the information gathered by this study won't be used by AHF as campaign fodder for their condom mandate ordinance. Or worse, that the information couldn't be conveniently be "sold" to AHF for use as blackmailing performers into compliance, or even recruiting them unwittingly in service to their potential "condom police".

It probably has also crossed Talent Testing's mind, too, that collusion with AHF/UCLA/Cal-OSHA, combined with busting the Manwin/APHSS/FSC/Cutting Edge Testing trust could gain them some serious credibility later on if the condom mandate ultimately passes and withstands court challenges. Clearing out a competitor AND getting paid...not a bad concept.

Now, all of this is simply conjecture on my part...for all I know, Talent Testing is simply taking advantage of an opportunity to contribute to a badly needed assessment of performer testing and STD study. But, considering the timing of all this, at the very least some answers are in order as to why they would do this at this time, rather than at least wait until after the condom mandate issue is resolved.

And, Shy Love and all those agents who are so exercised at defending Talent Testing's right of "independence" should take a step back and ask these same questions.

Porn Panic 2012: A Primer On The Facts As Opposed To The Hype: Ernest Greene Redux (Via 2009 "Scare") -- Part 1

There has been certainly  a lot of confusion and throwing around of statistics and claims and counterclaims surrounding the upcoming November vote in Los Angeles County regarding the move to impose mandatory condoms and other such "barrier protections" on porn performers.

Proponents of the measure say that the existing testing regime using screening of performers and once-monthly (now twice-monthly) testing has been proven to be a failure due to back-to-back-to-back "outbreaks" of performers getting HIV, as well as an alleged "epidemic" of other STI's such as chlamydia, gonnorrhea, syphillis, Hepatitis B, Hepatatis C, and HPV, which they say are affecting the industry; and that only mandating condom usage will redress the problem and protect "worker safety". Proponents also cite the supposed benefits of mandating condom usage for porn performers in the general context of promoting  "safer sex" amongst the general population; intimating that since porn has a disproportional influence on the developing sexual habits of impressionable youth, it should be coerced by government fiat to promote such "safer sex" practices as a means of "mentoring" young people into more "responsible" practices.

While all those intentions may be based on well-meaning goals and incentives (and some may be based solely on simply taking out competition and privileging those more economically more able to profit from a condomized regime), opponents of the condom mandate like me have stated that the measure simply attacks a straw problem that does not exist, uses a nuclear bomb when a precise scapel would be more appropriate, denies the choices of the very performers they claim to want to protect, undercuts the very cause of  promoting "safer sex", and ultimately, decimates and violates the rights of innocent people who's only crime was to engage in sex in ways not approved by certain elitists.

There are other objections that have been raised to the LA County ordinance (and a similar law that was passed covering the City of Los Angeles), such as the fact that it would essentially intervene in even private, monogamous coupled affairs where filming their sex scenes for mere personal pleasure rather than profit could still require both the expensive purchase of a permit to even tape their lovemaking, and even require the use of "bloodborne pathogen protection" as well as condoms, even if the couple was certified to be STI-free and never engaged in risky behavior. Others will cover those objections in other venues.

What I intend to do here is to reset an earlier HIV-in-porn "panic" to reveal exactly how much this latest condom mandate campaign has become nothing much than the latest in a series of "sex moral panics" designed to exploit popular prejudices and assumptions about porn performers and sex workers and sexually active/assertive people in general to fuel sexually regressive and highly reactionary legislation.

The template I will use is an article that was posted here on this blog on June 14, 2009 by BPPA contributor/co-founder emeritus Ernest Greene (aka Ira Levine), recounting an earlier "panic" that took place at that time in which a performer was found to have tested positive for the HIV virus. The subsequent brohaha set the foundation for the ultimately successful campaign against the Adult Indistury Medical (AIM) Foundation, which until 2011 had been the principal agency for testing porn performers, as well as the ongoing campaign for the condom mandate. I will add relevant annotations to Ernest's commentary, as well as some context to the present day, as I go along.

It should be noted that at the time of the original article, Ernest served (as did his wife/partner, Nina Hartley) on the executive board of AIM, and was instrumental in the formation of the testing regime they used up to their untimely demise due to mainly the efforts of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the California state branch of the Occupatonal Safety and Health Administration (Cal-OSHA), and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Services (LACDPHS). These three organizations also happen to be the main proponents of and boosters for the condom mandate.

Latest HIV-in-Porn-Panic: Rumor Control Central Re-Opens for Business

As readers of this blog already know, a female porn performer tested positive for HIV earlier this month at the Los Angeles clinic of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM), of which I am chairman of the board emeritus after six terms as a board member, starting with the organization’s formation in 1997. Though I’ve given up blogging as a hobby, the sensationalistic press coverage by local media and irresponsible fear mongering by public officials and anti-porn partisans in the wake of this development cannot go unaddressed.

The current situation has long-term implications for public health and public policy reaching beyond the parochial concerns of the porn industry, those who support it and those who oppose it. The ghoulish glee, complete dishonesty and utter disregard for the potential consequences to actual sex-workers in the attempt to politicize a single, isolated episode with which rad-fems and self-styled porn experts have seized upon this thing is disgraceful and says much more about them than it does about us.

For those implications to be considered rationally, there must first be some clear-sighted recognition of the known facts of this particular case. I’ll try to provide them, and then I’ll offer my perspective on the spin they’ve been given and my own best assessment of the correct course of action for the industry itself and for the greater community of which it is a part. I do not pretend to objectivity in this matter. I don’t have that luxury. I make my living as a pornographer and I am married to an active performer exposed to the same risks as everyone else in the long-term talent pool here, where the majority of porn in sold in America is made.

"Here", of course, refers to California and the Los Angeles region, where indeed most porn videos are produced..although, secondary markets such as Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Miami are emerging as challengers.

For brevity's sake, I will skip over Ernest's recollection of the 2009 case in detail; you are perfectly free to link to the original article if you wish to reset that case. Instead, I will jump forward to the reaction to that episode.

The lies started, as they so often do these days, with unsubstantiated reports from remotely involved parties appearing on porn gossip and chat sites. Perhaps the most harmful of these lies was that the infected performer was given a false negative result from her June 4 test by personnel at AIM prior to working on June 5.

This didn’t happen. It couldn’t have because her results did not come back until June 6, as laboratory reports conclusively establish. While AIM’s testing protocols are not foolproof, as nothing wrought by human hands can be, clinic procedures absolutely forbid clinic staff from discussing pending test results with anyone, including those tested, until the lab reports are in. These rules were observed to the letter in this case.

Another false accusation spread around the ‘net claimed that AIM made no attempt to stop the performer from working while her test was still pending. AIM has no legal authority to forcibly prevent anyone from doing anything. However, the importance of voluntary compliance with AIM’s testing and quarantine procedures is well understood throughout the industry and when the positive results were verified, the infected performer’s contacts have honored AIM’s request to refrain from performing until all re-testing is completed. Again, that is how the system works, and it worked quickly and effectively this time as it has in the past.

If that reminds you of something, Clones, then you remember went down last year with yet another HIV "scare", where a performer in Florida appeared to have tested positive for HIV, only to find out that the source sample used for his original diagnosis was tainted. He was retested under a different regimen and found to be HIV negative. However, the nature of his original tests, as well as the rumor that a major production company had allegedly allowed him to perform scenes during the arbitration of his original tests, potentially "infecting" many others, let to widespread chaos and rumors running amok. It wasn't until the Free Speech Coalition, through their then newly formed Adult Performer Health and Safety Services (APHSS), officially released the itenerary and etology of the tests, and verified the false positive, that passions ultimately cooled..but not before AHF and Cal-OSHA and antiporn activists like fundamentalist Christian ex-porn starlet Shelley Lubben were able to exploit the situation to their own advantage and further boost the condom mandate campaign.

And speaking of AHF and Cal-OSHA and LADPHS...here's where they come into the picture.  Onwards, Mr. Levine...ahhh, I mean, Mr. Greene:

But vicious as these distortions of reality were, their sources were already well known for their hostility toward AIM’s voluntary harm-reduction approach and knowledgeable insiders viewed them with the skepticism these sources have richly earned by their past behavior.

It wasn’t until the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles County health officer Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Cal-OSHA spokesman Dean Fryer and Aids Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein got into the act that the bigger and much larger and more ominous falsehoods were put in general circulation.

Fielding is a long-time adversary of AIM’s whose department has a history of harassing and defaming the organization dating to well before the 2004 cases. Fielding’s hirelings have attempted to obtain confidential medical records of AIM’s clients, made threatening calls to AIM clients in efforts to intimidate them into giving information his department has no legal right to collect and publicly accused AIM of “stonewalling” his department’s attempts to investigate STI transmissions in the industry, though he knows as well as we do that California law is extremely specific regarding what we must report to government agencies and what we are forbidden to report to anyone. Members of Fielding’s staff have heckled AIM board members, myself included, from the floor at public forums unrelated to his agency’s mission and Fielding himself has lied to my face in his office in front of two other AIM board members and two members of his own staff regarding his intended recommendations to the state legislature prior to the investigative hearing into the 2004 cases.

And yes, that would be the same Jonathan Fielding that is currently setting the terms of enforcement for the upcoming LA County condom mandate, should the voters of LA County pass this initative. Government bureaucracy is so much fun when you can play both sides of the street and get paid, isn't it??

But none of Fielding’s cynical machinations sinks to the level of his false assertion, trumpeted by The Times, that AIM has “concealed” an additional 16 HIV infections in the industry since 2004. In fact, eleven of those cases involved male performers in gay porn who are not part of AIM’s client base and who do not test with AIM and four were private citizens not affiliated with porn who sought testing at AIM for personal reasons. As required by law, all HIV infections detected by AIM were reported to Fielding’s department, which is how he comes to know about them, but were not disclosed to AIM’s heterosexual porn industry clients because they did not involve het porn in any way. And yet The Times reported this deliberate and heinous distortion of the truth under the blaring headline: “More Porn HIV Cases Disclosed.” In point of fact, there is no way AIM, Fielding or anyone else can know that the cases involving the gay performers were porn-related, as AIM does not monitor that population. But then again, The Times also characterizes mainstream porn as a $12 billion dollar a year industry, an unsourced figure frequently repeated in mainstream media and universally scorned as a ridiculous exaggeration by industry insiders.

 While the LA Times was ultimately forced to retract that stat back then, it remains a central, core foundation of the condom mandate's proponents' ideological offensive...though the exact number sems to expand depending on who's blasting the mic at the moment. "18?? Wait, Weinstein/AHF/Cal-OSHA says 24!!  No, he's wrong..it's actuall 36, Shelley sezs!!" And, of course, I won't even get you started on the outrageous claims of how much porn actually sells...since any number from $800 million to $88 BILLION can be thrown around.

Also, the exclusion of gay performers having contracted HIV, and the radically different system that is being employed by the gay side of the porn industry does have some major bearing on why some folks are so hot on the idea of imposing condoms and wrecking the existing system of testing and screening. But, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself; you'll see that anon.

Meanwhile, Cal-OSHA’s Fryer alleges in the same story that “AIM Healthcare has never been cooperative with us and our investigations,” because AIM has obeyed the law and refused to give out client information to agencies not entitled to said information.

And then there’s AHF’s Weinstein, who has characterized the porn industry overall as “a poster-child for heterosexual HIV transmission” and proclaimed that: “This industry screams for regulation. Cal-OSHA needs to require condoms be used in any film. Yesterday.” Weinstein has organized picketing in front of Larry Flynt’s offices to demand that the straight porn industry adopt mandatory condom use and has refused to meet with industry representatives to discuss the reasoning behind the current standards. He is what is colloquially known as a hothead.  

A "hothead" who also happens to be very successful at shaking down major companies and government for lots and lots ANNNNNNNND LOTZ of cash, as well as incentizing his formula of condoms and treatment in lieu of other means of protection, even if that stand in the way of actual solutions. Not to mention, a nice killing for Lifestyles and Trojan and Durex.

And as for the "mentoring" aspects of the condom mandate??

All these individuals, and a few converts they’ve made at the margins of the industry, support a truly mad plan by Fielding’s deputy Dr. Peter Kerndt to implement state-legislated regulations requiring condom use throughout the industry that would make it illegal to distribute sexually explicit materials created without the use of condoms, even though Kerndt himself admits that digital post production effects could theoretically render it impossible to determine after the fact whether condoms were used or not.

If these individuals were mainly concerned with the health and safety of performers, their views might at least be worth a second hearing, and their methods, while still questionable, would at least be well meant if misguided.

 And here is where the game is given away.  (Bolded emphasis added by me.)

But their real objective has nothing to do with performer safety and everything to do with porn content, which they regard as setting a bad example to viewers following safer sex precautions in the viewers’ private lives. Kerndt makes his priorities crystal clear in his 2007 jeremiad published by the Public Library of Science: “The portrayal of unsafe sex in adult films may also influence viewer behavior. In the same way that images of smoking in films romanticize tobacco use, viewers of these adult films may idealize unprotected sex. The increasingly high-risk sexual behavior viewed by large audiences on television and the Internet could decrease condom use. Requiring condoms may influence viewers to see them as normative or even sexually appealing, and devalue unsafe sex. With the growing accessibility of adult film to mainstream America, portrayals of condom use onscreen could increase condom use among viewers, thereby promoting public health.”

Riiiiiiiight. Because "unsafe sex use" was absolutely no problem before porn came along, and because only porn performers and people taping their sex habits for personal pleasure are/were the ones spreading all kinds of nasty STI's and HIV into the civilian world.  As if the HIV rate of transmission didn't really explode until the VCR, the Internet, the camcorder, and the 3G/4G digital phone allowed people to sext and flash their naughty bits and pass bareback porn betwen each other in an instant. And, of course, people who actually HAVE "unsafe sex" in actuality have been doing so without the aid of porn for centuries, and yet it seems that they have far less of a risk than the gay male porn population, which has had the unmitigated hammer drop on them due to the nature of the HIV virus..and whom also happens to enforce mandatory condom usage in spite of that.

But, if it makes "safer sex" hotter and more sellable to the public, nothing much else matters, I guess. All personal freedoms and choices pale before "protecting the public".

This is basically Weinstein’s line as well. They want to empower the state to punish porn producers for not requiring condom use because they regard the depiction of sex without barrier protections as unhealthy viewing for the audience.

Unfortunately, in the service of that goal, they’re quite prepared to put at risk the performers they claim to be protecting.

The actual method to that madness, I will get to in Part 2 of this essay.

 

HIV Porn Scare 2010 -- The Series (Ongoing): AHF Calls In Its LA City Council Chips; St. James Infirmary Hosts Sex Worker/Performer Forum; And DBurts Gets A Lie Detector Challenge

I wish that this wouldn't be a daily occurence, but the news is breaking fast and furious.

And today, the tornado hit the sewage plant....figuratively speaking...in LA, with perhaps the biggest threat to the porn industry's existence since the Freeman decision was handed down. From AVN.com:

L.A. City Council: Deny Film Permits to Non-Condom Shoots

In its latest bid to drive adult production companies out of business or out of the state, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has managed to get four Los Angeles City Councilmembers to support a motion to deny filming permits to adult companies unless the permits contain special conditions requiring condoms, dental dams, face shields and/or goggles for all sex acts.


"The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has documented widespread transmission of sexually transmitted diseases associated with the activities of the adult film industry within the City of Los Angeles," begins the motion proposed by Councilmember Bill Rosendahl and seconded by members Ed Reyes, Paul Koretz and Eric Garcetti.

"The producers of all films within the City of Los Angeles, including adult films, are required to obtain permits issued by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and administered by FilmL.A., Inc. under certain contracts between FilmL.A., Inc. and the City of Los Angeles," the motion continues. "Such permits for film production within the City of Los Angeles may include conditions to protect public safety and health."

"The producers of adult films are required by California Code of Regulations Title 8, Section 5903 et seq. to employ barrier protection, including without limitation condoms, to shield performers from contact with potentially infectious material during the production of adult films."

"I THEREFORE MOVE that the City Council request the City Attorney to report back within 45 days to explain the mechanisms necessary to enable the City’s film permit process to require workplace safety in the production of all adult films."

 Quite obviously, the ringleader of this coup was totally satisfied with this development.

AHF president Michael Weinstein, whose organization pushed for the motion, lauded Rosendahl for the action.

"Tying condom use to adult-film production permits is absolutely the responsible thing to do, protecting adult film industry performers who—under the current system of testing—are routinely asked to risk their lives and health in order to continue working," Weinstein told the BusinessWire.com site. "Unfortunately, despite clear regulatory requirements and actions taken by public officials, the adult film industry remains convinced it is above the law."

Enlisting the City Council is the latest move in AHF's war on the adult industry. Wednesday, it sponsored a press conference where alleged HIV-positive adult performer Derrick Burts claimed to have been maltreated by AIM Healthcare—a charge which AIM has categorically denied—and yesterday it convinced LA Health Department director Dr. Jonathan Fielding to serve a cease-and-desist order on AIM even after the California Department of Health gave AIM 60 days (from November 30) to correct the name on its application for an operating permit as a community clinic.

At this point, it's difficult to assess what effect the Rosendahl motion will have on the adult industry. The motion itself merely calls for the City Attorney to report on how FilmL.A., Inc., the agency which contracts with the city to issue filming permits, can be made to require adult companies seeking permits to require that those companies use condoms, dental dams and face shields/goggles in their productions or, presumably, to be denied the permit. The City Attorney has 45 days to make its report, and it is unknown what recommendations the City Attorney will make.

The question of why Weinstein would also include dental dams and PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) such as gloves and goggles to such a resolution probably wasn't asked of him...but I'm sure he'll take that as long as he gets his wish of jamming condoms up the industry.

And, of course, the councilmen involved in this action are solely concerned about the welfare of the performers.  It would have nothing to do with political contributions from Weinstein, right? RIght???

Yeah, right.  Quoting a followup article from Mark Kernes at AVN.com:

Permit Bill Sponsors Got Donations from AIDS Healthcare

LOS ANGELES—An investigation by AVN has found that the author of a City Council motion to require adult companies to use condoms, dental dams and face shields/goggles during sex scenes or be denied a City of Los Angeles filming permit has received campaign donations from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) president Michael Weinstein, as has one of the motion's co-sponsors.

District 11 Councilmember William "Bill" Rosendahl has received $1,000 in campaign contributions from Weinstein personally: $500 in 2004, when Rosendahl was first running for City Council, and two further contributions of $250 each in the spring of 2005 to Rosendahl's general campaign fund. In addition, Weinstein also contributed a total of $600 to District 5 Councilmember Paul Koretz: $500 in January of 2009, two months before Koretz, who had "termed out" as a state assemblymember, stood for his first election to City Council in March of 2009, and $100 one month after Koretz's election.

Now...if the name Paul Koretz sounds faintly familiar to you, it might be because of the following blast from the recent past:

Koretz, it will be remembered, held a public meeting in 2004, shortly after one industry performer who had worked overseas proved to be HIV-positive and infected three other performers before being detected by AIM Healthcare Foundation's regular testing regime, and later wrote an "open letter" to adult producers calling for  condom use during adult productions and intimating that if condoms were not "voluntarily" mandated, that the state assembly would require their use.

That, of course, was the Darrin James/Lana Roxx scare of 2004. James has reemerged as a critic of AIM and a backer of the condom mandate, but somehow he's escaped becoming a henchman for Weinstein the way Derrick Burts and Shelley Lubben have become.

Now, nothing has happened as of yet, and the resolution would allow for a 45 day period for recommendations from the LA City Attorney's office to the full City Council to require FilmLA (the governing board for movie production in LA) to "enforce" the proposed laws. What's so funny is that none of the regulations proposed would be enforced against mainstream films, where the risk of bodily fluid and hazardous material contact is a bit greater than mere kissing or fucking or sucking. (And I wonder how the hell would they enforce these rules against softcore films, exactly??)

Nevertheless, merely the threat of such regulation was enough to place the industry on alert.   Now that the threat is now out in the open, maybe it may be time for performers to get off their butts and defend their rights before they are taken away from them??

Fortunately, some are beginning to fight back.  Or, at least talk about fighting back.

The St. James Infirmary in San Francisco has been one of the premier resources of sex-positive activism for quite a long time; providing testing and support services in the Bay Area for sex workers, pornographer, and other sexual activists. Today, they announced, in association with the sex worker activist blog Bound, Not Gagged, the formation of a special forum to be held at SJI on December 18th specifically for porn performers to discuss the "shut down" of AIM and the overall climate for mandating condoms and other regulations. Quoting Stacey Swimme, the forum creator and blogmistress at BnG:

Background: The California Occupational Health and Safety board have been reviewing studio practices based on complaints made to them, some from performers, some anonymous. The Aids Healthcare Foundation has been lobbying hard with limited input from people who actually work in the industry. In June of 2010 AIM applied for a community clinic license and on December 9^th they received a cease and desist order after that application was denied.

We’re concerned that performers are being under- and mis-represented in these discussions and that it is critical for a diverse range of workers to come together to establish a unified voice to advocate for a rights-based approach to regulation.

Of course, our ultimate goal is for all performers to be as healthy and prosperous as possible! Please join us and share how you think these issues can best be approached. Please spread this message far and wide.

More information on how performers can get involved with the forum can be found over at BnG's blog via here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Derrick Burts/Cameron Reid saga gets weirder and weirder.

Now it seems that DBurts has gotten a bit of a challenge from porn producer Mark Spiegler, who used a post on the porn gossip blog LukeIsBack.com to call out Cameron as a phony out for the quick buck and whom is using the porn industry to cover up his own extracurricular activities. Basically, Spiegler all but dared DBurts to take a lie detector test to prove that he was infected on a "straight" porn set. Strangely enough, Derrick has been quoted to have agreed to this.

Lie detector tests are notorious for masking the truth as much as illuminating it, which is why they are not considered viable in jury trials...but it still makes for great theatre while we get to the bottom of this affair. I guess we all should stay tuned.

HIV Porn Scare 2010: The Coup d'Twit Edition -- AIM Gets Its License Pulled {Temporarily]; The Lubben/Weinstein Alliance Reacts Like They Found Dubya's WMD; And Derrick Burts' Escort Skeletons Are Exposed [Updated]

[Updated...scroll to bottom.]

The cancer that is the 2010 HIV Porn Scare is now metasizing like crazy...and on so many fronts.

First off....it seems that the LA County Health officials have learned the art of surprise assault timed perfectly. By morning, that Derrick Burts' story about how AIM allegedly dissed him for his own personal failure to protect himself from contracting HIV was going seriously viral, with articles screaming from coast to coast.

Both the LA Times and LA Weekly and the New York Daily News had seperate articles in which the former Cameron Reid (straight porn version)/Derrick Chambers (gay male version) was able to tell his "story" about how a nice Christian magician got caught up in the sleazy world of porn...and how it just so happened that Michael Weinstein's group (AIDS Health Foundation) was there to save his life...and how this proves that only mandatory condoms can save performers' lives.

The NY Daily News version was particularly loaded with plenty of the usual pathos you find in propaganda pieces against porn. Some snippage:

Burts said his girlfriend helped him find some of the side gigs, which earned him the "couple hundred dollars" he used to supplement his income in hospitality.

But he soon found himself singing on with OC Modeling Agency.

"They said I had the right look for porn and that I'd go very far doing it," Burts said.

The agency gave him the aliases Cameron Reid (for straight porn) and Derek Chambers (for gay films) and tested him for STDs.

Though Burts was clean before he started, one month later he found out he had contracted chlamydia, gonorrhea and herpes.

"It made me realize maybe porn wasn't the best option for me," he said.

But Burts revealed his agent, Phil Mack, encouraged him to keep at it.

"You might as well do it if you already have it because you can't do anything else," he reportedly said.

The porn star thus moved on to gay film shoots this September, but only participated in five, some of which involved him acting alone.

One month later, on Oct. 9, he found out he was HIV positive after a routine check-up at the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

According to Burts, Jennifer Miller, head of the AIM clinic, said she knew he had done a scene with a "known positive" but would not tell him if they were gay or straight due to patient confidentiality.

He added that he expressed his desire for follow-up treatment to Miller who told him she would get in touch with a specialist. Burts said that she also told him to change his phone number, delete his Twitter  and Facebook accounts and to get out of town -- and not talk to AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) as they were "trying to bring down porn." 

Soon after that, Miller released a statement claiming Burts contracted HIV from a personal encounter.

According to Burts, he then had an emotional breakdown while watching a UFC fight on Nov. 24 and became scared for his life, which was when he decided to call AHF.

There he met Dr. Laveeza Bhatti, an HIV care provider. He said her "jaw dropped" as AIM hung up on him each time he called to get documentation of his results.

"This is a multimillion dollar industry and they haven’t reached out to help me, that's the reason I'm speaking out," he said.

Now..keep in mind that AIM's official statement did NOT mention Burts by name (only as "Patient Zeta"), but did note that since no one in the industry had been infected due to his actions, they assumed that he had indeed gotten infected on his own, through "extracurricular activity". Of course, in the LA Times article, Burts flatly denied that, saying that outside of his work as a gay/straight porn performer, he was totally monogamous with his girlfriend. (More on her later.)

Then again, in the LA Times article, he says that he himself approached AHF anonynously without describing himself as "Patient Zeta"...a bit different than what he says to the NY Daily News.

If that was the only inconsistency in his story, it would be whack enough...but guess what some enterprising sleuths discovered while investigating Derrick's past life?? Two words: RentBoy.com.

That's right, Clones....Derrick was in fact a working escort. Nay...a working GAY escort.

I should add a caveat here: The two main sources that discovered Derrick's escort ad aren't exactly pure as the driven snow. The original ad appeared in a message board forum dedicated to maligning porn talent agent Derrick Hay, who runs LA Direct Models and who has been attacked as being not only a closet pimp who cross-contaminates straight porn with suspicious gay males, but who basically is the typical stereotype of a thuggish asshole. (He has had some numerous smackdowns with several female talent, including a classic battle with Lisa Ann, super starlet and formerly head of her own talent agency, Lisa Ann Talent Management, which unfortunately shut its doors middle of this year. And the owner of that particular board, Donny Long, is just as well known and disrespected as a rumormonger and thug on his own right who is not averse to racist, sexist, and homophobic blasts and forced outing of starlets he doesn't like (ask Nina Mercedez, who was actually forced to bring legal action to shut Long's website down after he attempted to expose her private info).

Nevertheless, while the messengers may have lots of shit on their hands, the message itself seems pretty legit...and good enough that our irrepressible star reporter Julie Meadows was able to verify and repost the ad at her blog. 

Think about what that means, Clones....If you happen to be a gay escort who has been known to be boasting about not only being proud to be HIV+, who has openly threatened to infect others, and who has directly admitted to having engaged in bareback sex as part of his work. it's kind of hard to say with a straight face that you were a victim of anybody...especially  of an agency who merely tested you when you decided to cross over into "straight" porn.

And then there is the changing story of how DBurts actually got infected. First, he said that he got HIV through oral sex. Considering that most reliable scientific studies show that merely swallowing semen is the least likely way to transport HIV, especially when compared to blood tearing during unprotected anal sex, that would be considered to be a bit problematic. (Unless, Burts was somehow suffering from a gum disease that involved bleeding, which introduced blood into the mix...which is far more likely to promote infection.) By the time he spoke to the LA Weekly folks, he had a new story: He was infected by an impropmtu anal creampie in which sperm got into his anal cavity. In a scene in which a condom was used for anal sex, but not for oral.  In which the condom was somehow removed for the final blowout, so to speak.  (And remember, this is all to prove that condoms MUST be mandated in straight porn to protect the performers.)

Oh, but it gets better.  Much better.  One of Julie's regular commenters, Michael Whiteacre, did his own deep digging on Burts and discovered Bib Bomb #2: His girlfriend, performer Kaycee Brooks....is also an escort, too!!!  (At least, if this ad over at the LuxuryCompanion.com site is anywhere near accurate.) At least we can say that she was at least a bit more careful about her habits, though; she was tested as part of the first- and second-generation tests when Derrick's HIV+ condition was discovered, and she managed to test clean.  Which, of course begs the question: How in the HELL did he manage to go through all that bareback gay sex and all those clients and infect himself with HIV+, but not manage to infect his girlfriend in the process?? (Remember, Kaycee is also an active porn performer, and she's tested at least once a month..and unless someone's lying, she seems to be on the straight and clean.) And just how, then, is AIM to blame when they themselves not only managed to prevent him from infecting others, but also managed to alert him that he contracted other STD's  like chlamydia.  (He also said that he contracted herpes, but since AIM doesn't do tests for that condition, he must have known that from someone else...or from his visit from AHF.) 

But then again, to quote the lyrics of an Olivia Newton-John song, "The Rumor": "Once a rumor spreads, the truth becomes a thing of the past."

Especially when said rumor is exploited successfully for a public vendetta.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

And here is where we enter Part  2 of the drama, in which AIM gets its walking papers from the LA County Health officials. Again, we quote the LA Times:

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials have shut down the San Fernando Valley-based health clinic that serves the porn industry.

[Updated at 11:42 a.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the clinic was based in San Fernando. It is in Sherman Oaks.]

“We’ve told the clinic they have to notify people of test results that have already been taken and make appropriate referrals. But they cannot provide new services,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the county’s public health director.

Fielding said county public health staff went to the clinic Thursday morning and issued a cease-and-desist order based upon state regulator’s denial of the clinic’s application for a community clinic license.

Adult Industry Medical healthcare’s general manager and lawyers did not return phone calls Thursday. AIM staff answering the phone Thursday morning said the clinic was still open.
Clinic officials were notified that their license application had been denied Tuesday. They applied June 7, state officials said, but Fielding said the application was “incomplete.”

“They hadn’t done all the things necessary to comply,” he said, but would not elaborate and referred questions to state public health officials, who did not immediately return phone calls or e-mail Thursday.

The nonprofit AIM clinic opened in 1998. Fielding said county public health officials did not become aware that they were operating without a license until April. In May, he said they sent clinic officials a letter advising them that as a nonprofit, they could not operate under an affiliated physician’s license and needed to apply instead for a clinic license.
Fielding said former patients at the clinic are welcome to seek care at county clinics.

“We have on our website a number of places where people can go for testing,” he said. “All the places that we’re involved with are certainly places where people can feel safe -- the privacy and confidentiality are maintained.”

Porn producers had relied on the clinic to maintain a database of performers’ test results that they could check prior to filming. It was unclear what would become of that system.

“I don’t know the answer to that -- you’ll have to ask them. Our feeling has been that that is not sufficient to fully protect the performers,” Fielding said. “They need to use condoms so that these workers will not be put in a position where they are exposed to potentially life-threatening diseases.”

That would be, BTW, the same Johnathan Fielding who has been one of the more consistent boosters of jamming mandatory condom usage down the throats and up the other orfices of porn performers...and his collusion with Mike Weinstein of AHF is well documented and needs no rehashes here.

And speaking of Mikey: Of course, his reaction to all this was about as surprising as a western sunset. From the LA Weekly blog:

During a teleconference Thursday AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein, who has been pressuring the industry to adopt mandatory condom use, called on porn producers to shut down shoots while this mess is worked out.

"This is the touchstone moment," he said. "This is the tipping point."

"The adult film industry needs to be shut or use condoms starting today," Weinstein said.

He called on the city's film permitting organization, FilmLA, to stop issuing permits to porn productions. He also called on the county to shut down production in the name of safety.

The state requires porn performers to use condoms, but the industry has resisted, citing market pressure, and California workplace health officials have said they don't have the resources to enforce the law.

We've found the weapons of mass destruction!!  We must attack NOW while the iron is hot!!!

And in this corner, Ministress Shelley and her Pink Cross cohorts are nothing short of ecstatic at the news. Quoting a comment in Julie Meadows' blog, probably directly from Lubben's blog:

PORN STAR CLINIC SHUT DOWN!! California heard our testimonies and the truth about the porn industry and finally did something about it!! GOD IS MOVING MOUTAINS!

Carrie Jean Chavez: woohoo!!!!!!!!!!

Shelley Lubben: I’m stunned right now. We’ve been fighting so hard pleading with the government to do SOMETHING about the rampant STDs and horrible abuses and sure enough, they shut that clinic down, the one where the so-called Doctor Sharon Mitchell does NOT have a medical degree. Wow. All these years of fighting and gathering evidence finally paid off!!

Mace Ravenwolf: What is done in darkness, will be brought into the light. MAJOR victory here as this “clinic” won’t be a free passport to an unknowing person’s death. I love how they tried to skirt around issues by saying they were compliant to the FEDERAL standars. Know thy enemy, if they are using the Federal guidelines as a loophole, go after the federal government. As far as I know most or any hospitals had to comply with state AND federal standards.. don’t they?

Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the rest of us: the rumors of AIM's demise might be a bit premature.

Lundeen said the AIM Healthcare clinic submitted an application for a state community clinic permit in June after the state told AIM officials that it was operating as a community clinic without a license and would need to obtain one.

He said on Tuesday the clinic's application for a license was denied, but that the grounds for denial included a lack of proper paperwork, including a "transfer agreement" that would tell the state it had an agreement with an area hospital to accept patients it wasn't qualified to treat.

Lundeed made it sound as if AIM would be up and running soon and that its denial was based on a minor technicality.

"We're working with the facility to meet the requirements under the law as quickly as possible," he said.

And, it looks like the Big Dawgs of porn are finally rolling in to play their version of Zone Defense to cover Sharon Mitchell's and AIM's backsides. 

Steven Hirsch, founder of the country's largest adult studio, Vivid Entertainment, said it would continue with production despite AIM's closure.

"We have been in contact with AIM and believe that the current situation is temporary and will be quickly remedied. There are other alternatives that we can utilize in the meantime and will do so. We believe the current system of testing works. Our productions will proceed as scheduled."

Hirsch's stance defies Weinstein's call for the city of L.A. to deny film permits to the biggest studios, including Vivid and Hustler.

Michael Whiteacre, as always, cuts through the BS to the heart of the matter:

The rest of this story is quite simple, really.

The massive collusion between and amongst the cabal that is LA County Department of Public Health, AHF, UCLA and Cal/OSHA is reaching its crescendo — they seek to have AIM classified as an “industrial” (as in industry-specific) clinic, as opposed to a public clinic. The accompanying “industrial” standards are more stringent, and it also would make it that much easier for OSHA to classify porn performers as "employees.”


That’s the goal — these four entities are sharpening up their cutlery to carve up pieces of the pie.

AIM has a very good lawsuit here — a coordinated smear campaign against a private clinic (AIM) whereby the County health department seemingly co-strategized with, or at least provided advance notice of a public health action to, a private organization (AHF). How else to explain the rush by AHF to get the Burts story in the papers? A mere coincidence? A lawsuit, and subpoenas, would tell the tale.

It’s simply disgusting.

I will leave you tonight with Julie Meadows giving the last word for now, since her words all through this debacle have packed the most powerful punch.

What gets me is that the industry has always been attacked. No one has cared as much as Sharon Mitchell to try and bring the industry together. Should she have called herself a doctor if her degree comes from a non-accredited college? Probably not. Should the clinic have had some sort of responsible notification process installed for HIV-specific cases to avoid getting sued by Darren James in 2004? Probably yes. Does anyone care that it is this situation in 1998 that made it easy for Marc Wallice to fake a negative test and infect people? No. They. Don’t. REALLY. Care. They just don’t, but Mitch did. Right or wrong, proper procedure or not, someone who actually cared is being smacked around by those who don’t care and parts of the industry are even celebrating that. In the end, I doubt many from within or without of the industry can see the implications of what’s really going on. What do religious fanatics care that there’s no porn clinic or porn, period? I guess that’s the real question. Why do they care? Money, and the adult industry is an easy target. Hey, as long as they don’t give up. Michael has a good point about a healthy lawsuit for AIM. The bad guys don’t always win. Didn’t you see The People v.s Latty Flynt?

Of course, Larry Flynt had to take a bullet in his spine in the name of defending his freedom.  Hopefully, Sharon Mitchell, Ernest Greene, Nina Hartley, or any other person associated with AIM won't have to go that far to roll back this nonsense. For the sake of performers' autonomy and humanity, we'd damn well better hope so.


UPDATE (12-10-10):

Well. well, well....those rumors of AIM's demise were in fact premature after all.

Mark Kernes over at AVN Business/AVN Online has just posted an article at their blog that brings a great deal of clarty to the situation involving AIM's license getting pulled.  Turns out, it wasn't the LA County but the State of California Departmant of Public Health that had rejected AIM's application for a clinic license...and guess what???  It was based not on any permanent misfortune on AIM's part, but a minor syntactical technicality!!

As reported earlier today on AVN.com, state health officials told AIM last June that it would be required to submit an application for an operating permit in order to be a "community clinic" serving the adult community for STD testing, and AIM in fact did so several weeks ago. However, although the official name on AIM's lease is "The Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation," AIM submitted its application as "AIM Medical Testing Center," and in a letter dated November 30, Travis Green of the state's Licensing & Certification Program kicked the application back to AIM, saying "I found that the package is incomplete and contains information that is unclear and/or inconsistent. To assist you in completing this package, I am providing a detailed outline of the information and/or clarification necessary to proceed with the application review process."

And what information was unclear or inconsistent? Under the heading, "Office Lease," the letter reads, "Please initial and date next to each line-through of 'AIM Medical Testing Center' and replaced [sic] with 'The Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation.'"

That's it! All the state wants is for AIM's application to reflect the name of the clinic that's on the property lease rather than the name by which everyone in the adult industry knows the clinic. No other corrections are necessary.

But even though the letter from the state clearly states, "Please note that you will be allowed sixty (60) days from the date of this correction letter to submit the requested information," nonetheless, the L.A. County Health Department served AIM with a cease-and-desist letter requiring AIM to stop collection blood samples from its clients—an action that apparently was taken at the instigation of AIDS Healthcare Foundation president Michael Weinstein. (Don't the state and county health officials talk to each other?)

Oh, and just wait until Mike Weinstein hears this bit of news...seems like the shutdown of AIM isn't quite as total as he fantasizes.

But despite the county's cease-and-desist order, AIM is still operating. However, performers who need their blood drawn and urine sample taken will have to do so at one of AIM's "draw stations" which are located all over the city of Los Angeles, in several other cities around the state, and with contractors in all other states of the union. Performers can find the locations of these draw stations either by calling AIM, which will be open tomorrow and for the foreseeable future, or they may go online to AIM's website, which lists all the addresses there.

"People can pay for the tests online, and pick up their tests at AIM, just like they always do," said AIM general manager Jennifer Miller. "It's exactly like coming in here and the price is exactly the same, and it's the same turn-around time."

"On this application, the county is making us in particular dot all our i's and cross all our t's, and if that's what they ask for, that's fine," Mitchell explained. "It's just that we knew it was going to take us some time to get appropriated, because our landlords are in and out of town quite a bit, and we knew it was going to take a while to get a reprint of our lease from them, and this is why they closed us down, but you've got to see how this looks. You've got this kid [Derrick Burts aka Cameron Reid aka Derek Chambers] saying that we're ineffective and not good, and this gets piled onto all the other stuff that L.A. Times has been more than happy to print."

Bottom line: AIM is open; they just can't draw blood at their facility, so they've arranged for others to do it—and the county, apparently at the urging of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has overstepped its powers in attempting to close the clinic down—because AIM wrote the wrong name down on its application!

In other words, you can't draw blood or give urine samples directly at AIM;s main facilities in Sherman Oaks...but you can still get tested at any one of many off-facility sites and pay for it online at no extra charge. Other than that hiccup, which will probably itself be temporary until AIM does get its license, everything else will be business as usual tomorrow morning.

Gee..I wonder why this news didn't make the LA Times news desk??  It's not as if they haven't been killing dead trees on the issue, not with the FOUR articles they did pimping Derrick Burts as The Ultimate Porn Victim and AHF as his new Savior. I guess that writing antiporn propaganda for so long kind of tunnels the vision a bit??