Back from Budapest, AIM's Sharon Mitchell kiddingly refers to herself as the Mother Teresa of porn. "It gave me such a great feeling to go over there and give them the partner notification system that works so well here," Mitchell said. "It was refreshing to not meet attitudes or stumbling blocks. It was nice to be greeted with open arms and be respected for a solution that I've worked so hard for these past few years. We planted the seed and gave them resources, solutions and cost-effective testing. I was really able to help out."
Mitchell: "It was great. Anita Rinaldi, a producer over there and agent as well, flew me over there. She felt that the talent in Budapest needed resources and could we set up resources for PCR-DNA testing. And they also needed education. For a couple of mornings I worked with an Hungarian interpreter. I interpreted three different types of seminars - one on HIV, one in hepatitis and one on STDs. I taught classes at the hotel Ibis to different talent and producers - how to shoot sex safely. The business there has boomed so much in the past couple of years since they're now a republic. It's kind of gotten out of hand, and there's not a lot of health issues being looked at carefully - things like trichomoniasis - a lot of producers didn't know that you can't take the penis from the anus into the vagina and back and forth. It creates a tremendous amount of infection. The girls were getting a lot of infections.
"This is the type of hands-on-stuff that we have to teach when we deal with porno. I managed to reach an awful lot of people. It was kind of a blanket education for folks over there who really needed it. They had some misinformation, some assumptions, they had a hepatitis C outbreak, so they were really, really ready for an awful lot of education.
"The people who supply liquid condoms to us gave me a large supply to bring over there. I showed them how to use it so they can have an unlimited supply of that, now. I also went over with about 5,000 condoms.
"The second day I was there I checked into laboratory services. I found a PCR-DNA lab called H-Med Diagnostica. They do it with a 24 hour turnaround. I arranged that for the talent at about $70. The same laboratory is also providing a gyncecologist so they'll have all the different things that are available that we've set up at AIM that we feel is helpful to the porn business."
