At least one male performer who was quarantined because he had worked with Jessica Dee, who was confirmed as HIV-positive last Thursday, has worked anyway, resulting in another woman being added to the quarantine list.
There are rumors that other male performers who are quarantined have broken their quarantine as well.
“Until the first-generation women clear out twice this thing is not over, the quarantine lasts for 60 days,” Mitchell said. “No one has been cleared yet, everyone is still quarantined.”
Nicole Brazzle was placed on the quarantine list for working with an unknown member of Jessica Dee’s first-generation list on April 27.
Dee’s first-generation list, with the date she worked with each performer in parentheses following each name, includes: Jason Zupalo (3/29), Sean Michaels (4/07), Julian St. Jox (4/07), Mark Last (4/10), Brock (4/10), and Carlos Mendes (4/12).
Jason Zupalo, a black male performer who only works part-time within the industry, was added to Dee’s first-generation list on Friday. Zupalo worked with Jessica Dee on March 29.
It is not yet known which man broke the quarantine.
Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM) still has not named officially Jessica Dee as the third performer who was diagnosed as HIV-positive, though her agent has confirmed that Dee was the person AIM was referring to when they announced a third HIV-positive result.
While technically voluntary, the quarantined performers had been told not to work until 60 days had passed and the first-generation list of the James' nucleus had tested negative for HIV.
Adult performers who may have been exposed to the HIV virus by working with any of the three performers who have tested positive for HIV during the current outbreak were quarantined. Also quarantined were any performers that worked with someone that had worked with an HIV-positive partner. These two groups are known as first- and second-generation, respectively.
Each HIV-positive person has their own first- and second-generation list, their own “nucleus.” When a member of the first-generation is found to be HIV-positive, they are spun off into their own nucleus. The people that worked with them move up from being second-generation to become the first-generation for the new nucleus.
Dee was originally a member of the first-generation in the James’ nucleus, and the men she worked with after James were placed in the second-generation list of the James’ nucleus.
When she tested positive, AIM started tracking Dee’s nucleus even though they did not publicly identify the people in her nucleus. In her nucleus, the men she worked with after James became her first-generation list. Since those men had been quarantined virtually since James’ HIV-positive status was announced, there shouldn’t have been a second-generation in Dee’s nucleus.
"We don't expect there to be a second-generation in her case, because everyone has been placed in quarantine for 60 days,” AIM’s executive director, Dr. Sharon Mitchell told AVN.com while announcing that AIM had discovered a third HIV victim within the adult industry in less than one month, indicating her expectation that people were abiding by the quarantine.
It was Mitchell’s belief that the virus was being contained by the quarantine that prohibited her from disclosing Dee’s identity and the performers that she had worked with.
Many of the male performers who are quarantined have expressed their belief that they are safe, and many have stated that they don’t believe in the need for the second-generation quarantine, noting that heterosexual males face a very low risk from catching HIV from sexual contact.
Low risk does not mean no risk.
There are a number of ways that even strictly heterosexual men can catch HIV through sexual contact with an HIV-positive female partner.The virus can enter the body through the urethra (the opening at the tip of the penis) or through abrasions or sores on the penis.
Vaginal fluids can transmit the HIV virus, and the heterosexual male faces greater risks if their female partner is menstruating or has another sexually transmitted disease such as genital warts or herpes.
Some men in the adult industry are known to inject themselves in their penis with substances that are supposed to help maintain erections, sometimes leaving punctures that bleed during their sex scenes.
