SAN DIEGO—The adult industry turned out en masse for today's meeting of the California Division of Occupational Safety & Health (Cal/OSHA) Standards Board, with 30 industry members and supporters testifying in opposition to the proposed revision of California Health Code Title 8 Sec. 5193, which revision would add a Sec. 5193.1 to the existing law.
The Board began hearing witnesses for and against the revision at 10:30 a.m., and the testimony went nonstop for two and a half hours, with only six people speaking in favor of the legislation, including the "usual suspects": Sofia Delgado, Cameron Bay (both of whom sobbed throughout their testimony), Rod Daily and Derek Burts, all of whom claimed to have caught HIV while working in the adult industry. Also on hand were Dr. Peter Kerndt, AHF "public health consultant" Adam Cohen, and a new face, Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, who essentially went through the changes Sec. 5193.1 would make to existing law, and expressing his agreement with those changes.
But the first to testify was Free Speech Coalition CEO Diane Duke, who called the Board's attention to the comments FSC had filed regarding the proposed revision, and expressed her displeasure in the fact that in formulating the revision, Cal/OSHA had not consulted any current performers or producers or company owners in the adult industry, relying entirely on retired actress Traci Nolan, who worked under the name of Anita Cannibal, for its entire input from the industry. Duke also noted that there was plenty of opportunity for Cal/OSHA to hear from current, active industry members, many of whom showed up regularly at the Cal/OSHA meetings regarding mandatory condoms/barrier protections that had been held regularly for the past six years.
Using the hearing room's video monitors, Duke presented a series of slides detailing what the PASS testing system was, what it tests for, and how it operates to protect performer privacy while still preventing infected performers from spreading disease within the performer population.
Also testifying at the hearing was the entire hierarchy of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC), including President Chanel Preston, VP Conor Habib, Secretary Ela Darling, Treasurer Veruca James and Chair James Deen, all of whom expressed their support of the FSC version of the revision, and most of whom stasted that they felt the official Cal/OSHA version of the revision would actually cause more harm than good, driving production underground while failing to actually prevent disease transmission.
One witness who performed triple duty at the rostrum was industry activist Eric Paul Leue, who read letters from two physicians—Dr. Bob Grant and Dr. Bernard Branson—and one from a medical consortium, all of whom opposed the CalOSHA version, and each of whom mentioned several specific flaws they had found in the proposed revision. In addition, the Board heard testimony from David Holland, an assistant professor of medicine who supported the industry's testing regimen as the best way to prevent STD transmission, and Dr. Sarah Melancon, a sociologist and performer who objected to the proposed revision's lack of medical privacy (an issue which echoed the previous testimony of Layla Price, who found that her real name was made known to Cal/OSHA officials against her wishes), and also about her researches into the problems with the Gardasil HPV vaccine.
One particularly effective witness was attorney Karen Tynan, who let the Board know that she had been the attorney for the woman known as Patient Zero, whose targeting by CalOSHA and AIDS Healthcare Foundation back in 2009 led to the state of California being ordered by the Superior Court to pay more than $350,000 in attorney fees—a figure which clealry got the Board's attention. Tynan went on to explain how the proposed revision ran afoul of at least two existing California laws, one of which was Health Code Sec. 120975, and the other the Workers Compensation Act.
Other notable witnesses were Daniel Robinson of Being Alive Los Angeles, who brought with him support from about a dozen other agencies whose primary responsibilities included treating patients infected with HIV, and all of whom opposed the CalOSHA version of Sec. 5193.1, and Jack Carroll, an employee of the public health system and former employee of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who's currently suing AHF under the federal whistleblowers act for misuse of federal funds. He also opposed the Board's version of Sec. 5193.1 and supported FSC's proposed revision.
In all, more than 100 adult industry members and supporters turned out for the Standards Board meeting, filling the entire lower seating section of the hall and forcing the Board to open up the balcony to accommodate all the onlookers. By contrast, roughly two dozen AIDS Healthcare supporters were present, all wearing matching red shirts but none testifying about the proposed revision.
Besides those already named, adult industry attendees (many of whom also testified) included Girlfriends Films owner Moose and former owner Dan O'Connell, Ring LeSable (husband of actress Sable Renae), camera operator and film editor Five Star (who testified to the enormous costs required to digitally remove condoms from an adult film), Alex Chance and Mo Reese (both of whom spoke in opposition to employers being forced to pay for the cost of tests and vaccinations), Ariel X, John Smith, April Flores, Brock Hume, Moe "The Monster" Johnson, Lotus Lain, Terry Melonson and Dave Cummings, as well as FSC supporters Craig Pulsifer, representing seven AIDS treatment organizations, who spoke in favor of PrEP like Truvada and against mandatory condoms, and Kevin Bland, a labor lobbyist, who championed performers' medical privacy, supported the existing testing regimen, and also criticized CalOSHA's lack of industry input in formulating the new proposed regulations.
After the hearing, Moose commented, "It was good to see the performers come out. It was a big group, one of the biggest I've seen, and they came on their own dime, while AIDS Healthcare came with a big army that didn't seem to know anything and just all wore the same shirts and half the people in the back didn't seem to know what the hearing was about; they were more of a heckling crowd, so I feel the evidence and everything is in our favor, but when it's up to the city and the state to decide, you never know."
Diane Duke summed up the industry's attendance and participation in the hearing by saying, "When the industry comes together, we're a powerful force. I could not be more proud of our industry today."
Update: The above has been changed to show the correct field of study of Dr. Sarah Melancon.
