The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and the California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) have declared the current HIV scare as an official outbreak and have forced the AIM Healthcare Foundation (AIM) to turn over their records both Darren James and Lara Roxx, the two performers who were diagnosed as HIV-positive last week, as well as the records of the first- and second-generation of performers who may have been exposed to the virus.
“We’re literally forced to cooperate in this situation. I’m expecting OSHA to barge in here at any moment, by 4 o’ clock, I’ve been told. This is a full-scale investigation by the county health department and OSHA,” AIM’s executive director Sharon Mitchell, PhD, told AVN.com.
“We’ve been holding back this legal information since Monday. We’ve done everything we could but we’ve been strongly persuaded to cooperate by our attorneys,” she added.
“Honest to God, there’s nothing I could do,” Mitchell said.
And if the county health department and Cal/OSHA get their way, adult entertainment will be condom mandatory in the very near future, with no facials or internal cumshots allowed. They also want production companies to start paying for testing within the industry.
“We’re not here to shut the adult industry down,” Dr. Peter Kerndt, director of the sexually transmitted disease program for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.“We’re just trying to make it safe for those who work in it. The current situation makes it obvious that it is not safe.”
The current situation that Kerndt is referring to is the HIV-positive status of two adult performers, Darren James and Lara Roxx, and the approximately 50 performers that have been quarantined because they may have been exposed to the virus.
James is believed to have caught the virus while working in Brazil, but that has not been confirmed and some believe that Roxx may have been the source. Tests have not confirmed one way or the other for certain.
While the Department of Health seems to be willing to work with the adult industry, as they demonstrated by meeting with representatives from both the gay and straight side of the industry yesterday, they plan on the launching their own investigation, expected to last a few weeks, immediately.
Kerdnt said that the HIV scare has been determined to be an “outbreak,” giving the health department authority to investigate, “primarily to ensure that there is no further spread, as well as to offer treatment, testing and counseling to those that were exposed.”
Kerdnt said that an “outbreak” can involve as little as two or three people, defining the term as, “an unusual occurrence of disease transmission.”
Kerdnt said that sometime this week, Cal/OSHA will begin inspecting the production companies involved in the outbreak, visiting their sets and making sure that all Cal/OSHA standards are being met.
The Cal/OSHA standard that is of most concern to the adult industry is one that pertains to protecting workers from that may be exposed to disease-infected blood or other fluids. In other words, production companies may be required to prevent talent from being exposed to semen.
The other standard that Cal/OSHA is seeking to enforce is the requirement that all employers have a written injury and illness prevention plan.
Cal/OSHA can fine or even shut down production companies that are found to be in violation of safety standards. “They have broad powers as far as safety is concerned,” Kerdnt said.
Acknowledging that production companies will likely challenge any attempt by Cal/OSHA to claim jurisdiction over them by arguing that adult talent are not employees, but independent contractors not entitled to rights granted traditional employees, Kerndt said that the Department of Labor and Cal/OSHA are both prepared to fight that battle when it comes.
“Cal/OSHA is very familiar with that defense. Even when a person is a contractor, they don’t give up their rights,” Kerdnt said, saying that waivers signed by the performers won’t indemnify the production companies from injuries or illness contracted while working.
Considering that there isn’t a condom-only policy in place at the vast majority of studios in the industry, Kerdnt felt that Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM) handled that situation appropriately and to the best of their abilities.
Kerdnt confirmed that AIM handled the situation to the best of their abilities, while suggesting that production companies were going to have to do more to enhance those abilities.
“I think they’ve [AIM] raised awareness,” Kerndt said. “They’ve done a lot of important work educating and being advocates for the talent in the industry. They’ve created an awareness of the risk and have done what they can to minimize that risk.”
Kerdnt agreed that AIM was underfunded and felt that the production companies should be footing the bill for all testing required for working within the industry.
“I think that the fact the talent is paying for this is … you’d never work in a hospital and be exposed to hepatitis and HIV and [have] the hospital ask you to pay for tests and vaccines,” Kerdnt said. “That’s why it’s important for Cal/OSHA come in. It requires of the employer that they have all of this in place. If any testing or screening is involved, then the employer has to pick up the costs for that.”
