Report of Fourth Porn Star with HIV: A Lie?
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — News that a fourth porn star has contracted HIV has the battle raging between the porn industry and a nonprofit that’s pushing for mandatory condoms for stars performing in vaginal or anal sex scenes.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the mandatory condom measure that passed in Los Angeles County last November, has reported that a fourth HIV-positive adult film star came to the foundation looking for information.
But the Free Speech Coalition, a porn industry trade group, called that a lie.
The Free Speech Coalition, which runs a sexually transmitted disease testing service and database that it says ensures safety in the absence of condoms, said none of its facilities or doctors had encountered a fourth HIV-positive performer. It said the AIDS Healthcare Foundation released false information to further its agenda of passing a statewide condom mandate.
“It is extremely likely that this situation is more posturing for AHF’s political agenda,” Free Speech Coalition CEO Diane Duke wrote in a statement. ”Again, we have no evidence of a fourth performer testing positive for HIV.”
AIDS Healthcare Foundation president Michael Weinstein shot back in an interview with ABC News that his foundation was more credible than the Free Speech Coalition and never intended the fourth HIV case to become a big story.
“They ended quarantine after six days,” he said of the August moratorium on adult films after porn star Cameron Bay tested positive for HIV. “They reported two more cases after that.”
A third porn actor tested positive for HIV last week, prompting the second temporary industry shutdown in a month. It is still in effect.
On Aug. 28, the Free Speech Coalition lifted its first moratorium on production prompted by Bay’s HIV diagnosis on Aug. 23.
“All performers who worked with Cameron Bay have been tested and cleared,” it said in an Aug. 28 blog maintained by the Free Speech Coalition’s STD testing organization. “It is safe to lift the moratorium.”
On Sept. 4, Rod Daily, a porn actor who performed in only gay and transsexual films with condoms, took to Twitter to announce his HIV-positive status. He and Bay had reportedly been dating.
A positive diagnosis for the third actor, whose identity has not been released, prompted the second shutdown last Friday, which is still in effect. The Free Speech Coalition said on Monday that it had re-tested this person’s partners and all results reported so far were negative. One remaining test result is pending.
“Finally, to address some additional rumors, the doctors have confirmed that the third performer did not work with Ms. Bay or Mr. Daily, nor did the performer work on a Kink set,” Duke said in the statement. Kink is a production company where Bay worked.
Weinstein said performers are becoming afraid to work without condoms as a result of the outbreak, but if they insisted, he said, they’d probably be out of a job.
“We need to stop taking medical advice from pornographers,” he said. “The bottom line is that when you’re employed, when you go to work and get paid, then employment law applies. You can’t dangle 30 stories above the street without a harness.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio