According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, six government officials spoke to approximately 30 performers at a meeting on Tuesday about the recent HIV outbreak, lecturing the group that HIV testing alone is not enough to ensure their safety.
Dr. Peter Kerndt, the head of the sexually transmitted disease division of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, encouraged the performers to support a bill seeking to regulate the adult industry.
The county health department is adamant that condoms should be mandatory, a point of contention for many within the adult industry.
"You all realize the shortcomings of screening," Kerndt said at the meeting. "It doesn't prevent anything. If that's all you rely on to protect yourself and others in the industry, it's not a matter of if, but when [another outbreak will] happen again."
The Times reports that many of the performers at the meeting agreed with Kerndt and urged the government officials to do more to help the industry.
Yet last month, the unofficial leaders of the movement to organize talent rejected a preliminary draft of Assembly Bill 2781, the bill that Kerndt encouraged talent to support. The bill was drastically amended after the aforementioned talent meeting, but a number of performers have vocally opposed a mandatory condom policy.
While the bill does not specifically require condoms, it does call for health officials to determine the appropriate health standards.
Then again, some performers and producers have decided to insist upon a condom-only policy. One performer, who asked the Times not to use his name, felt that government regulation could help talent in their attempt to organize. "Without any backing and any consequences for the companies, they will replace us, plain and simple," he said.
Representatives from Cal/OSHA and the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were also at the meeting.
Eugene S. Murphy, a representative from Cal/OSHA , said his agency has the authority to intervene if workers feel their workplace conditions are unsafe.
"What we need is a location and a complaint … that there is something unsafe going on," he said. "If there is a violation, we issue a citation and there is a monetary penalty."
Officials from Cal/OSHA have previously stated that they have never received a complaint from performers in the adult industry.
Brooke Ashley, a performer who is believed to have been infected with HIV by Marc Wallice in 1998, had told the Los Angeles Times in a previous article that she had contacted Cal/OSHA in 1998 regarding safety conditions, but was told at that time that, "It's a local issue controlled by the local county health department."
