The recent Ca. HIV event hits METAFILTER - claims of 16 cases?

[ArtWilliams]

From what I have read, those 16 cases were not of performers but wannabes who upon taking the test found out they had HIV and could therefore not perform.

Originally Posted by Bill

After one performer tested positive this week, 16 previously unpublicized cases of HIV in the porn industry have emerged. Last time this happened, government officials called it an outbreak and porn production grinded to a halt for two months.

From metafilter

http://www.metafilter.com/82411/Publ...-porn-industry

The performer first tested positive June 4, said Dr. Colin Hamblin, AIM's medical director. She worked the following day -- June 5 -- for reasons Hamblin said are still being investigated. A second positive result came back June 6. And the clinic is awaiting results of a third and final confirmatory test, he said.

The actress had two recent sexual partners, according to AIM. One is a porn actor, now under work quarantine, who performed with the woman June 5. The other is her boyfriend. Those men have had sexual intercourse with an additional six people, who have all been notified and offered testing, Hamblin said. So far, no one known to have had contact with the woman or her partners has tested positive for HIV.

....

In a statement published on AIM's website, Sharon Mitchell, the clinic's co-founder and a former porn star who appeared in more than 2,000 films, said the media was "like a moth to a flame."

"Rumor is rampant when the words 'HIV' and 'porn' are in the same sentence," she said.

Mitchell said AIM's clinic has been a leader in promoting prevention and testing. But, she added, "we are not the police department of the industry nor wish to be."

Public statements from clinic representatives downplaying the incident -- which one clinic official called "not a major event" -- drew some criticism.

"This industry screams for regulation," said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Cal-OSHA needs to require that condoms be used in any film. Yesterday."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,3569962.story