“Adult film performers must be tested every 30 days and show proof of a clean test before they perform”

Says the L.A. Times. They’re 100% wrong, of course:

As of Friday, the new database, Adult Performer Health and Safety Services, will provide porn producers and agents with access to results from numerous testing facilities, according to Diane Duke, executive director of the Canoga Park-based Free Speech Coalition, which created the database. Duke estimates it will be at least two months before testing of performers is complete and the database is fully functional.

[…]

Adult film performers must be tested every 30 days and show proof of a clean test before they perform, according to voluntary industry standards.

Not true. Does the L.A. Times have an agenda in printing false information, or do they just not have any idea what they’re doing?

Falcon, Channel One, Titan, and at least a dozen other major gay adult studios don’t require STD testing. But maybe the L.A. Times is just talking about straight performers? No, they’re talking about gay performers, too. They bring up Derrick Burts a.k.a Patient Zeta (who the L.A. Times disastrously tried to cover last year), who told people he contracted HIV while working on a gay porn set:

[Duke] said she looked forward to working with county officials but will defend the privacy of performers, as AIM officials attempted to do. After [Derrick] Burts tested positive, for instance, AIM officials delayed reporting test results to the county even after his case was reported in the Los Angeles Times.

Burts, whose story has been discredited (at best), is the one case they cite. Great.

Also, according to the first paragraph of the L.A. Times article, this is what the new database will do:

A San Fernando Valley-based porn trade group plans to revive a controversial database that tracks adult performers’ sexually transmitted disease test results.

Five paragraphs later:

The new database will tell producers and agents only whether performers are available for work, not their specific test results as AIM had done, Duke said.

The hell? Either it tracks sexually transmitted disease test results, or it tells people who’s available for work! There’s sort of a difference. That the database won’t be revealing personal medical records or private information or specific STD test results makes it completely uncontroversial. Is there anyone or anything that the L.A. Times didn’t misrepresent in less than 300 words?

Has the L.A. Times been tested for being retarded?

[L.A. Times; APHSS]

 

6 thoughts on ““Adult film performers must be tested every 30 days and show proof of a clean test before they perform””

  1. The article says “according to voluntary industry standards.” It doesn’t say anything about testing being a requirement.

    1. It makes it seems as if being tested and showing a clean test is the standard for all adult performers, and then conflates Derrick Burts with the whole process. Derrick Burts, the gay porn performer. And in gay porn, very few studios use “voluntary industry standards” where a performer “must” submit to testing. So, I read this as one big mess.

  2. Apparently these agencies has too much time and revenue on their hands focusing on people who choose to life there lives as film sex workers…Hurrrrrrray!!!

  3. Condom use is safer sex, not totally safe sex. The gay studios that insist of testing should be applauded, not looked on with disdain. At the very least, porn actors should know the status of those with whom they will be performing with, so they can decide what they are comfortable with and to take proper precautions if necessary.

  4. Ever position I’ve ever held for different corporations required drug test.Mostly random. For insurance coverage are they looking at the drugs also in these test also?It would seem also if a condom were worn these actors should be able to work poz or not!

    1. What industry do you work in something like transportation? In business fields drug testing is not that common at least not in WA state.

      The LA Times really did a bad job on this one.

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