(no subject)
No time!
Quick update - the AIM foundation is the organization that provides HIV testing & other sexual health services, primarily for the porn industry, but was open to the public as well. They were single-handedly responsible for catching 2 HIV scares before it was spread throughout the industry and are the driving force behind the ridiculously high level of safety for the industry. Their basic strategy is that porn producers opt-in to their testing services, then the actors are required to get tested every 30 days (the HIV test has only a 2-week window, which means it's accurate up until 2 weeks prior to the test), and a recent clean HIV test result must be submitted to the producer before an actor can work.
They also set up the system so that the *producers* get the results directly from AIM, to eliminate the possibility of fraudulent or forged test results from actors.
Then they track their patients. This allowed them, in the past, to quarantine Patient Zeros, who got infected outside of work, so that the virus did not spread to other actors. The frequent testing & open sharing of medical information has been shown to be just absurdly effective in maintaining safe working conditions even when condoms are not used (although AIM officially recommends condom use & many porn companies do voluntarily use condoms).
Unfortunately, the county keeps harassing AIM & trying to shut them down because they erroneously believe they should legislate & mandate condom use but not testing. I have no idea why they keep wanting to shut down a testing facility, although I understand the desire to mandate condom use. There are 2 big problems with this - first, the gay porn industry had a MUCH higher incidence of HIV when they mandated condom use but did not utilize testing. I am told they have been making the switch to the testing method and that is proving more successful than mandatory condom use alone. So we already know that mandatory condom use with no testing does *not* work better than often-but-not-mandatory condoms + testing.
And the second is that legislating the industry puts them under the domain of OSHA (as the current laws are written). The reason why this is a bad thing, is that OSHA currently forbids companies from discriminating against HIV+ employees. It is currently against the law for an employer to ask about a potential employee's HIV status or make employment decisions based on that status. For all jobs where HIV status does not affect their ability to perform their job, I completely agree. But there is not currently any exemption for industries where fluid-transfer is a regular or likely part of the job.
This means that a porn producer would no longer be allowed to request an actor's test results or refuse to hire an HIV+ actor. Apparently, legislators don't see why this is a problem.
So, the latest round of harassment resulted in AIM getting denied licence renewal, which effectively shut them down for about 2 months. But they're back up, re-organized into a different class of organization (a private corp. regulated by the Medical Association instead of the county government), and offering even more services than ever!
http://business.avn.com/articles/video/Announcing-AIM-Medical-Associates-P-C-Now-Open-425539.html
This is a Very Good Thing, and I wish them all the best fortune in their upcoming endeavors in protecting the health and safety of sex workers - and all sexually-active people!
Quick update - the AIM foundation is the organization that provides HIV testing & other sexual health services, primarily for the porn industry, but was open to the public as well. They were single-handedly responsible for catching 2 HIV scares before it was spread throughout the industry and are the driving force behind the ridiculously high level of safety for the industry. Their basic strategy is that porn producers opt-in to their testing services, then the actors are required to get tested every 30 days (the HIV test has only a 2-week window, which means it's accurate up until 2 weeks prior to the test), and a recent clean HIV test result must be submitted to the producer before an actor can work.
They also set up the system so that the *producers* get the results directly from AIM, to eliminate the possibility of fraudulent or forged test results from actors.
Then they track their patients. This allowed them, in the past, to quarantine Patient Zeros, who got infected outside of work, so that the virus did not spread to other actors. The frequent testing & open sharing of medical information has been shown to be just absurdly effective in maintaining safe working conditions even when condoms are not used (although AIM officially recommends condom use & many porn companies do voluntarily use condoms).
Unfortunately, the county keeps harassing AIM & trying to shut them down because they erroneously believe they should legislate & mandate condom use but not testing. I have no idea why they keep wanting to shut down a testing facility, although I understand the desire to mandate condom use. There are 2 big problems with this - first, the gay porn industry had a MUCH higher incidence of HIV when they mandated condom use but did not utilize testing. I am told they have been making the switch to the testing method and that is proving more successful than mandatory condom use alone. So we already know that mandatory condom use with no testing does *not* work better than often-but-not-mandatory condoms + testing.
And the second is that legislating the industry puts them under the domain of OSHA (as the current laws are written). The reason why this is a bad thing, is that OSHA currently forbids companies from discriminating against HIV+ employees. It is currently against the law for an employer to ask about a potential employee's HIV status or make employment decisions based on that status. For all jobs where HIV status does not affect their ability to perform their job, I completely agree. But there is not currently any exemption for industries where fluid-transfer is a regular or likely part of the job.
This means that a porn producer would no longer be allowed to request an actor's test results or refuse to hire an HIV+ actor. Apparently, legislators don't see why this is a problem.
So, the latest round of harassment resulted in AIM getting denied licence renewal, which effectively shut them down for about 2 months. But they're back up, re-organized into a different class of organization (a private corp. regulated by the Medical Association instead of the county government), and offering even more services than ever!
http://business.avn.com/articles/video/Announcing-AIM-Medical-Associates-P-C-Now-Open-425539.html
This is a Very Good Thing, and I wish them all the best fortune in their upcoming endeavors in protecting the health and safety of sex workers - and all sexually-active people!