Why We Shouldn't Shoot All Of The Lawyers: VIVID's Counterbrief Response To AHF's Defense Of Measure B

To set this up right: VIVID, along with co-plantiffs Derrick Pierce and Kayden Kross, is attempting to appeal the preliminary ruling in the still ongoing Measure B appeal, in which Judge Dean Pregerson set aside certain portions of the law while upholding the main parts requiring condoms for porn shoots. They are also attempting to disqualify the AIDS Healthcare Foundation as a "putative intervenor" on behalf of the law. AHF had earlier filed their own brief defending the law; linkage to that brief can be found here. (Mark Kernes' excellent breakdown of AHF's brief is here.) This brief is the plantiffs' response to AHF's brief....and as you will see, it stands on its own for its full fledged takedown of AHF's arguments and of Measure B in general.

MeasureBLawsuit_VIVIDResponseBriefToAHF.pdf

The Rebuttal Too Smart For CounterPunch To Publish: Whereas I Rebuke Gail Dines' Bullshittery

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Measure B Was Only A Missile, CalOSHA Drops The NUKE: Draft Of New Porn Regulations Released, And It's As Bad As It Gets..And WORSE (UPDATED)

[UPDATED: Scroll to the bottom of this post.]

A lot of people were under the impression that since Measure B is now getting assaulted under legal action, and the proposed condom mandate law died a brutal death in the California Assembly, the porn world would be safe from regulation now for the forseeable future.

Problem is, though, they forgot about CalOSHA and their ability to use regulations to do what official law might not accomplish. And, considering the not so thinly veiled collusion between CalOSHA and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in their mission to regulate the porn industry to death, or at least force "barrier protection" on them, it may have been not too wise to overlook them.

Well...can't overlook them now.

Tonight, CalOSHA, using the tried-and-true method of leaking to friendly supporters of their crusade (read, Mike South's blog), released their draft copy of proposed "bloodborne/sexually transmitted pathogens" prevention regulations that they plan to submit to the federal branh of OSHA for final approval.

I have converted the original .doc file to .pdf and will be uploading the file here ASAP for your personal viewing and analysis...but trust me on first reading, it is as bad as it gets...and WORSE.

Here's the quick Cliff's Notes summary of the proposed regs:

1) A new category of "sexually transmitted pathogens" is created in order to justify mandating condom usage, assuming that ALL porn performers are essentially carriers of STI's and are incapable of protecting themselves.

2) Condoms and other forms of "barrier protection" are now mandatory for ALL vaginal and anal penetrative sex, and any contact of semen/vaginal fluids with the face or internal body organs are now prohibited. Translation: no more facials or swallowing, no creampies, and no pop shots to the ass or near the vag, either. The back, the breasts, and anywhere below the knee is still apparently OK, though.

3) There is a exception from condoms (and I assume dental barriers for women) for oral sex, but that is conditioned on verification that the performers involved have undergone a stringent vaccination regime for HPV, Hepatitis A, and Hepatitis B, and is cleared by an approved physician....and that exception is invalidated by January 1, 2018.

4) All porn production studios are now required to have Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) -- as in safety gloves, goggles, aprons, and other mandatory equipment -- in use and accessible. In short, porn studios and personal residences are now forced to endure regulations more suited for hospitals or drug testing facilities...even though STI infections in porn are below that of the general population.

5) All porn production studios will be forced to provide a licensed physician at all shoots to verify that these regulations are being enforced, and to report any violations and/or possible infections to the local health authorities.

6) Vaccines for Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, and HPV will be required of all performers, at producers expense, and even if a testing/screening program is in place that clears the performer. (What..no Hepatitis C or syphilis??)

7) Porn production companies must provide at their own expense a program of medical services and followup treatment for possible exposures. (This is a direct attack at the PASS protocols, since their screening system doesn't include as of yet followup for treatment. I'm guessing that AHF is chomping at the bit to provide those "services" through their inferior yet "free" tests, right??)

That's the bad part...here's where it gets progressively WORSE:

8) Producers are now required to log every scene, including every scene performed within the last 30 years, including personal medical information about everyone involved with each and every scene....and that includes the performers' stage and real names, addresses, and other personal info. And, they must make such info available upon request to any federal or state authority, and must maintain such information for no less than five years. (This is 2257 on steroids, y'all. Can you imagine someone like Michael Weinstein getting his hands on such a database of personal private information?? Imagine no more, because it's more than probable that AHF will take over the monitoring and the testing AND the enforcement of these regulations, and thusly will have control over this "database". NSA will have nothing on THIS.)

9) Furthermore, even if the production company should go out of business, it would be required to immediately transfer these required records to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (the federal branch of OSHA) within 3 months.

All in all, this is nothing less than an AHF/OSHA coup against the adult industry to impose their own standards and drive the industry underground or completely out of business...and all for AHF and the condom companies to have free ad placement. Other than the tube sites and illegal pirates who will now thrive on the sale of bareback porn that will, if these regulations come to fruition, suddenly become a commodity like gold, and the mainstream "simulated sex" genre who may get a boost from elimination of the hardcore competition, it's going to be pretty damn hard for any aspiring producer to survive, let alone make a profit.

Don't say that we didn't warn you of this happening.

UPDATE: I've now posted the full text .pdf version of the draft regs on Scribd. Here's a copy of the transcript:

Section 5193 1 STI Form 9 Text 10-2-13 Draft

UPDATE #2 (11-5-13) AVN has now confirmed with Cal-OSHA that the document as opposed is only a first preliminary draft document, not the final regulations. Quoting from them:

UPDATE: AVN has confirmed that the proposal referenced below was officially issued by CalOSHA, but in its current form, it is described as a "draft" rather than an actual "proposal."

Deborah Gold, the Deputy Chief of Health and Engineering Services for CalOSHA, recently stated in an email, "I believe that what is being circulated is a draft, not a proposal, and it was/is our intent to post it to the advisory committee webpage... With health regulations, Division staff sends draft proposals to Board staff for their review. Then those proposals, with comments, corrections etc. are sent back to Division staff, until a final proposal is reached.  What is being circulated is only a preliminary draft. The Board released it pursuant to a public records act request... We have had six advisory meetings which led to the current draft."

Gold also said that she is no longer the lead contact on this issue, and that those responsibilities have been assumed by Senior Safety Engineer Amalia Neidhardt, who noted in an email to AVN that the current draft has been edited from an original draft created in June, 2011. She also noted, "This draft has been sent to the Board staff for their review. It is not a rulemaking proposal at this time."

So, it seems that this draft proposal wasnt really intended to be released to the public, but was only done so through a "public records act request". So, who requested it?? Mike South??  AHF?? AVN??

Did AHF and South simply jump the gun to announce these regs as "final" even though they were clearly intended to be merely preliminaries to be adjusted for the final proposal?

And....considering that it took nearly TWO years for CalOSHA to revise their original 2011 preliminary draft document to this version, what does it say about the interagency warfare now going on within CalOSHA to tweak these proposed regulations? You'd think that if they were following the AHF template to the letter, they would have released a final edition by now....but there must be some ongoing infighting going on now.

In any case, the process is still ongoing, and we will still keep you updated should anything happen.

"Adult Performers Are Adults. Lets Try Treating Them That Way." Just Another Ernest Greene Essay

[Note by Anthony: BPPA Contributor Ernest Greene asked me to post this new essay here as a followup to his original post critiquing Tristan Taormino's change in condom policy; and also addressing the recent announcements of produer Nica Noelle (who annouced that she will require condoms for her future films, in effect adopting Taormino's new policy), and producer Axel Braun (who announced this week that he would raise minimum age of eligibility for performer in his films/videos to 21 from 18). As always, the views expressed are his alone, but you are totally free to support or oppose them on their merits as you wish. I have added embedded links for background reference and research support, but the words are as Ernest typed them.]

Adult Performers Are Adults. Let’s Try Treating Them That Way.

As expected, since I raised my objections to Tristan Taormino’s declaration via CNN that she would henceforward require performers to use condoms in all scenes she directed, I’ve been getting the usual barrage of incoming bullshit that follows any attempt to take a reason-based stand on this issue. I’ve been called all sorts of things by all sorts of people who seem united only in their rancor toward me. The ranting of Rob Black and the newly retired (how could they tell?) Gene Ross, who even AHF won’t touch with a barbecue fork, is no surprise. I’m a bit more amused by Gail Dines chiming in on CounterPunch to offer her concurrence with my view that Tristan’s new stance is politically motivated (after making sure her readers knew me as a “maker of violent pornography”). Thanks for the recognition, Gail, and since you’re so fond of primitive Anglo-Saxonisms to demonstrate that you’re not a pearl-clutching prude, I’m sure you’ll know what I mean when I suggest you take your sarcastic glee in setting one pornographer against another and stick it right up your bum. I’m not going to be drawn into rebutting your lies and nonsense any more than I would be the verbal pollution of Ross and Black, with whom you share a common contempt for the truth and an adolescent need to shock.

Now, as to those who actually think that any position I’ve taken ever in my 30 years in this industry opposes the use of condoms, get real. I was among the very first directors to speak up for condom use back in 1993, when most of this business thought of latex as an ingredient in house paint. At that time I declared that I would never work for any company or on any production that would not allow performers who wanted the right to use condoms to do so. I have never wavered a millimeter from that position and I never will. One reason I endured a decade of bureaucratic bullshit from Adam&Eve is their condom-friendly policy. I am absolutely not against performers using condoms whenever, wherever and with whomever THEY choose. I’ve got miles of footage to prove it. And BTW, I’ve recently been confronted with earlier statements in which I rejected the contention that condom porn is unsellable when, in fact, I’ve sold literally millions of dollars worth of it and still believe, as I did when I said as much to the odious Luke Ford, that condoms are nothing more than a creative challenge for good directors and not a menace to the bottom line outside of certain particularly hardcore genres.  But they are a menace to some performers, particularly female performers, as Nina has explained in her own widely quoted explanation of why she, like me, favors a condom-optional policy depending on who does what to whom and how they feel most safe doing it.

Let’s be serious here. In order for that position to be ethical, it’s necessary for performers to have such a choice unconditionally. In the same way I’m opposed to AHF, Cal-OSHA and any members of the porn community attempting to make condom use mandatory under threat of either legal sanction or economic hardship, I’m unalterably opposed to any producer or director refusing to allow performers to use condoms or doing so only after a lot of whining and then scratching the condom performer from the list of potential future hires. The choice to use condoms must be meaningful for all performers. If there is to be an industry-wide position on condom use, and eventually I suspect one will emerge, it must be one of complete acceptance of performer choice regardless of all other considerations. The choice to use or not use them must not subject the performer to economic discrimination on future productions. Nothing less can be justified if we care to preserve the credibility of our oft-repeated insistence that performers do what they do with full consent. Full consent means consent to every act they’re asked to perform and to the use of barrier protections in addition to continued universal STD testing if they so desire. 

In 1993, I favored mandatory condom use for all because we did not have effective, quick-response testing of the type we have now and understood that those performers who wanted to use condoms would be kicked out of the business unless condom use were made a universal standard. It’s not 1993 now. We do have amazingly accurate testing available to all and have proven over a dozen years, during which the het side of this industry has still seen exactly two documented instances of on-set HIV transmission in the shooting of tens of thousands of bareback sex scenes, that screening and partner tracing have reduced the danger of the most serious STD transmissions in the workplace to a vanishingly rare phenomenon. At this point I’m perfectly comfortable shooting tested performers with or without condoms, but I’m not the one in front of the camera and I’m not the one who should be making that call for those whose bodies are on the line. No one else should either. I don’t care who seeks to do this or toward what end. It’s an invasive, infantilizing affront to the intelligence and judgment of consenting adults, and consenting adults are who work in front of the cameras in porn, full stop. I do not presume to know better than they do what they need, but I can tell you with absolute certainty what they don’t need, which is anyone else telling them how to do their jobs safely under threat of whatever consequences said somebody can impose.

This industry needs to accept condom use and get over it. Those both inside and outside the industry must accept that condom use is the performer’s business only and get over it also.

I hope this dispels any misunderstanding of where I stand on this question and though I know it won’t silence all the lies and distortions surrounding that stand, I am nonetheless clearly on the record as having taken it, acted on it and pledged to continue to do so regardless of what anyone else says or thinks about it. Clear enough for the various low-information individuals who have attempted to misrepresent it in every way possible? I hope so but I’m not optimistic. Neither am I optimistic that the majority of production companies, who have sought to defend themselves against the threat of intrusive governmental regulation by insisting that they support performer choice as an alternative, will actually follow through on making their claim credible by their actions on the set. Nevertheless, they should and if they don’t they’ll eventually end up regretting it.

It is a medical fact that STDs exist in the population as a whole. It is a medical fact that porn performers, however thoroughly tested and closely monitored, possess no special immunity to these diseases. There have been instances of STD contagion, usually of the more minor sort, in porn production and there will be more in the future no matter what measures are taken. No protection is foolproof. Testing is not foolproof. Condoms are not foolproof. Even combining the two is not foolproof, as not all STDs are transmitted in the same way. Unless this industry cares to be subjected to the kinds of irresponsible, politically driven attacks that occur every time someone catches a cold on a set that have become commonplace, the nudge-nudge-wink-wink approach to the condom option must be replaced by meaningful performer choice, or the idea of performer choice is, in fact, just exactly the meaningless dodge porn’s critics allege. The FSC’s insistence on performer choice is only defensible where performer choice exists.

Now, that’s my position and I’m sticking to it, so those who insist that it’s something else are hereby cordially invited to sit down and STFU.  I do not believe that condoms are necessary for safe porn production thanks to the testing system and I don’t believe the majority of performers want to use them for all the reasons they’ve stated. However, those who do want to use them should be able to without losing work or taking crap over it from anyone. Likewise those who choose not to should suffer no repercussions from members of any opposing camps.

And while I’m defending real performer choice, I want to make it clear that I am not backing away from my objections to directors appointing themselves in loco parentis to make decisions of the most personal nature for consenting adult sex workers. I note that director Nica Noelle has fallen in line behind Tristan Taormino in insisting that her performers use condoms whether they want to or not, also in the full knowledge that these same performers will be working bareback on some other set the next day so they are really made no safer overall by such unilateral decrees in such limited circumstances. I find these heartfelt declarations no less self-serving and hypocritical regardless of the source and still find them mendacious and cynical given that such limited policies are unlikely to protect anyone to any significant extent.

Likewise I find Axel Braun’s declaration that he will use no performers under the age of 21 in his productions to be risible. Again, seemingly operating under the assumption that performers can’t be trusted with their own futures, he declares that 18-year-olds are not in a position to weigh the long-term consequences of performing in porn, an ability they will magically acquire in the following three years. This is utter nonsense. At eighteen, anyone is free to enlist in the any branch of the U.S. military, the long-term consequences of which can include maiming and death. At eighteen anyone can work in any of the ten most dangerous trades listed by The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which remain the following:

 1. Fishing

2. Logging

3. Aircraft piloting

4. Refuse and recyclable material collection

5. Roofing

6. Structural iron and steel work

7. Construction

8. Farming

9. Truck driving

10. Mining

Workers under twenty-one have been injured or killed in every one of these occupations but no one seriously suggests that they be barred from entering them until they (presumably) have their wits about them at age 21. In porn, like it or not, economic advantages accrue to early adopters. For many performers their best earning years will 18-24. Why should they be deprived of the opportunity to make the most they can out of their time here by artificially handicapping them from pursuing their ambitions starting at the same age as someone enlisting for military service or shipping out on a fishing boat? This kind of thing may make it easier for directors to don the laurels of nobility, but it accomplishes nothing of value for performers whatsoever.

 Young performers would be better served by full disclosure of the possible repercussions of their decisions going in. I doubt that Marine recruiters take 18-year-old prospects on tours of V.A. hospitals, but perhaps they should. I doubt most agents, producers and directors take new talent to a sit-down with Gauge, who retired from porn early, educated herself for three different trades and found herself excluded from those trades when her past porn activities became known.  Perhaps they should. But realistically, the most serious long-term hazard porn performers face is the lasting stigma attached to them by people who regard porn as vile and that hazard can only be mitigated by broad social change.  I see that change as no more likely than a reduction of the far greater dangers of military service by a universal rejection of war as an instrument of policy.

Young people facing hard choices in a time of declining economic mobility will not be able to avoid those choices no matter who presumes to “protect” them by interfering with their ability to make a living. That is a reality with which performers, producers, directors and politically-motivated outsiders must learn to cope. I wish the world were a gentler place that provided safe, well-compensated employment to all, but it never has been and will never be.

This does not acquit anyone of the decent responsibility to insist on reasonable standards of protection and realistic minimum ages for participation in fields having the potential to make life difficult later. But in the end, if there is to be this thing we call individual freedom, individuals must be free to make decisions they may later regret. The best thing we can do is provide them with the most complete knowledge at our disposal of what future costs they may incur as a result of making their own decisions and then getting the fuck out of the way and letting them make those decisions. They’re the ones who will have to live with them and the hard choices rightfully belong only to them.

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.