The FSC's Executive Director Kat Sunlove told XBiz that despite the recent tragic circumstances of the two performers who have so far been diagnosed with HIV, the diligent work of AIM and other self-regulating efforts by adult production companies have managed to keep HIV-positive performers out of the adult entertainment industry for more than five years.
"This is a tragedy and we are all concerned," said Sunlove. "But it is definitely an isolated incident that we are working to prevent from ever happening again.'
Sunlove attributes this success rate of staving off HIV in the U.S. adult industry to the effective testing program developed and maintained by AIM under the direction of Dr. Sharon Mitchell.
According to the FSC, the last outbreak of HIV hit the adult industry in 1998 because an infected the actor was so shamed by his status that he lied and kept working using forged negative test results.
At the time, veteran adult film actress Mitchell was concerned that talent was being subjected to enormous risk and she pushed for an industry-wide testing program. With initial funding from FSC, Mitchell began a pilot project to provide STD and HIV testing, as well as counseling and other health services to industry talent.
Seven years later, Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based AIM now serves over 1,000 clients per month and has interdicted a number of potential performers who were HIV-positive.
"AIM just needs to be highly praised," Sunlove told XBiz. "At the same time, the experience has taught us that there is not just a theoretical gap, but a real gap, and we will be working with Sharon [Mitchell] at AIM to seal that gap so we can once again can go back into a time of safety for our performers, which is the number one concern."
According to Sunlove, recent concerns that Los Angeles County might begin imposing regulations on adult productions is slim to unlikely. Sunlove said that the state of California would be gravely mistaken to do anything that drives the adult industry away.
"This is a very big industry in this state," said Sunlove. "We employ a lot of people and pay a lot of taxes. It is unlikely that they will try to impose regulations that will injure the industry. We have really done such an extremely good job of regulating ourselves that I really don't think that they [lawmakers] are particularly interested in having to do it for us.
"We all can say that the use of condoms will undoubtedly go up," she said. "The prevalence of performers going overseas will drop a lot. It's really the silver lining, if there can be one, that we learn from our negative experiences and move forward and try and make corrections based on what we've learned."
Prior to the recent HIV scare, FSC has been meeting with state lawmakers and the Los Angeles County Health Department regarding safe practices within the adult industry.
According to Sunlove, that meeting took place on Tuesday and was very successful from the standpoint of opening up communication between lawmakers and the adult community. Sunlove added that the FSC and county health officials will continue to stay in close contact.
The FSC will be lobbying at the state capitol in Sacramento on April 26 and 27. According to Sunlove, FSC members will be meeting with legislators on both days. FSC will also hold a press conference on the capitol steps on Tuesday.
"I think we are going to find a lot of interest in getting information directly from us," Sunlove said. "They've learned that if they want to know what is going on in adult, they can ask FSC.
FSC encourages everyone in the adult entertainment community to continue to employ the services at AIM so that they can prevent any future HIV outbreaks from occurring.
