After Darren James was found to be HIV-positive in March after a trip to Brazil, the Adult industry as a whole realized there was a hole in the testing system that acts as their only defense against HIV: while Porn Valley subjects performers to PCR-DNA tests at least once every 30 days, performers across the globe don’t enjoy the same safety protections.
During meetings that took place in the aftermath of this year’s HIV case, a consensus grew within the industry that a new protocol was needed to protect the domestic population of performers from another case like James’, who is believed to have caught HIV from a female performer in Brazil on March 10.
James was known to get a new PCR-DNA test at the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM) almost religiously every three weeks even though industry standards only call for a new test every 30 days.
On March 17, one week after he was exposed to the virus, James was back in the United States and went to AIM for a new PCR-DNA test. The results were negative.
James worked with 13 women from March 19 until April 10, the date of his last performance before being diagnosed as HIV positive. Three of those women tested HIV-positive.
If James had been quarantined until he had been tested negative twice, it would have greatly improved the odds of the virus not being passed on to anyone else.
The protocol that was agreed upon, and for the most part adhered to, is that performers who traveled abroad for productions would undergo a voluntary quarantine of two weeks. The very day a performer returns to the United States, they would get a new PCR-DNA test, then refrain from working, or work only with condoms until a two-week period had passed.
After the two-week period, the performer would then get a new PCR-DNA test, and once that test proved negative, said performer would no longer be under quarantine.
“This was agreed to and was adhered to by many, many people. This was the only way we could ensure we were protecting the population,” AIM’s Dr. Sharon Mitchell, PhD, told AVN.com.
Mitchell could only think of two instances were someone had broken the protocol and returned to work without testing. Recently, a performer allegedly ignored the protocol after returning from a foreign locale where said performer had engaged in high-risk sexual acts, bringing to the Adult industry’s attention that the hole in their testing system was still there: a performer or producer who chooses to ignore the protocol, can.
“Everyone wants to make money and they want to make it in a hurry. As an adult performer, director, or producer in this industry you have to realize that you can’t trust anyone,” Mitchell said, recommending that all performers remain vigilant in checking to see that their partners have their tests in order and that they take a moment to ask about recent work history.
Unfortunately, there is no way to keep track of who should be under quarantine under the new protocol.
Adult Dat, a database maintained by AIM to keep track of the work history of all performers, is not designed to monitor who has left the country. “Our databases are set up for two reasons: one is for clinical data and the other is in case we need to start a quarantine,” Mitchell said. “We’re already filled to the brim with what we can do right now.”
Mitchell advocated a Web site maintained by a performer to monitor other performers, an idea suggested by Evil Angel owner John Stagliano in April as the best way to guard against talent breaking the quarantine.
“That’s the only way – one central place maintained by talent, so the talent can know who’s been out town. I think that’s what’s needed,” Mitchell said.
Such a Web site was never developed.
The unfortunate reality is that little has changed since spring – while the vast majority of the industry has abided by the new protocols, and some companies have adopted even more stringent testing requirements, there is still a gaping hole in the system that protects adult performers.
