this is probably the most reasonable comment i’ve read so far.

your answers to some of the questions are kinda worrisome. You wrote: if too many performers are testing positive then the county health people may come in and take over, or people may simply lose confidence in AIM

that tells me that there are far more people with HIV working in the field under false documents and in reality we’re facing a serious epidemic. i care less about losing confidence in AIM as a non-profit organization that I do the actual health status of men and women in porn. Do you seriously think that AIM is covering up positive results in order to prevent state and local authorities from taking over testing procedures? Even if that were true why would you want *more* govt interfering in your profession if AIM continues to f*ck up? It sounds like it’s in the industry’s interest to support this *non-profit* organization OR create several private companies to compete with them. I think we can all agree more competition more likely produces better quality of service.

I could be wrong but my sense is that there may not be any sincere desire by the public nor the porn higher ups to take care of our performers. STDs/STIs ought to be number one priority yet every time a story like this hits the mainstream everyone directly involved sound like they have no f*cking clue what happened.

The real enemy here is HIV. the faster our best and brightest move away from banking and wall street and into research labs the better our chance of celebrating a cure by f*cking each other on the streets.

Not only would I like to have this question answered, but also where these cases were actually tested. I have not found in any of the articles that mainstream is running, where they specifically say that all of these “22” cases were tested at AIM. They keep saying 22 tested positive, and that they were “adult performers” (or in one story it said “sex workers”) and the majority were male (16 men, 5 past women since 2004 + female Patient X this month?) Does this mean that every one of them tested at AIM, or are they including clinics other than AIM that tested them, and “adult performer” was listed as their occupation on the forms they submitted to that clinic?

Mainstream will always air on the side of sensationalism where our industry is concerned. I respectfully suggest that we ALL be careful of giving them more ammunition than they have already started to manufacture about this situation and our industry. Remember, the mainstream press is the source that is designating Patient X as a “Porn Star”, when among those of us actively working in adult, the description that has been made of her recent performance record hardly qualifies her as a “Star”, because she hasn’t worked much. I’m not putting the woman down in any way by making the designation — only pointing out the spin that the media is putting in this story. The way they are writing about this, you’d think it was a big name Contract Girl for a major production company. They are also blowing numbers out of proportion, making it sound like 22 confirmed HIV positive tests over a five year period is a HUGE amount of people, classifying as a major disaster.

Since there are claims that there are over 5000 known adult performers in the industry as a whole at this time, (which I can certainly believe to be at least close to a correct number), that adds up to less than one half of a percent of HIV positive tests among adult performers over a five year period. Let’s not forget that the amount of adult performers would be even larger added up over a 5 year period, since so many performers come in, shoot and leave the industry so quickly….

In many ways, this a tempest in a tea pot. Everyone in this industry knows this is a permanent danger not only within our industry but outside of it. AIDS and HIV are here to stay. At least our industry has set standards of testing, which are beyond what most people outside of our industry adhere to. The problem isn’t with the standards of our industry and AIM not conforming to their own standards… in this situation it is pointing to the responsibility of the specific individuals that ignored those industry standards, and didn’t even wait for a hard copy of the results before shooting the scene.

This is only my opinion, but if anything in the testing system needs to be addressed immediately, it’s that no more “phone confirmation” of HIV tests should be allowed. Not unless all calls are logged, tape recorded and registered within AIM and all of the other clinics. It’s just good business sense.