I spent the day yesterday digging into this APAC, interestingly enough Mark kernes issued a pre-emptive strike on AVN.com but did he tell the truth (Does he ever?)
If you believe Mark Kernes over at The FSC:
“APAC was formed because Anikka [Albrite] and I had this idea, and we contacted James Deen and Stoya who had a similar idea,” explained veteran actor/director Mick Blue, “and that formed the basis of the organization, and then the four of us started to build the APAC group, and Nina Hartley and all the others came in soon after that.”
When I watched the video some things jumped out first of all the info that is there is actually pretty good but what troubled me was what was left OUT. Like the fact that condom use GREATLY reduces the risk of STD transmission, or that your chances of catching an STD in porn are about 40 to 60 times greater than picking up a random person in a bar and having sex with them. Nowhere does it address that under California Law that testing has to be paid for by the producer and nowhere does it address that under Los Angeles County law condom use is required on set. Nor does it address specific legal rights that all performers have.
The video is presented in a half assed manner that is reminiscent of the old STD videos from high school, it is incredibly poorly done with all the production value of a goatse.
But more than anything I noticed that they wanted donations, so I start looking around, nowhere on the site does it say what the donations would be used for or more importantly to me who the principals are.
The old give us money but we wont tell you where it goes or even who its really going to…HMMMM THAT sounds familiar doesn’t it?
So I start asking around and digging….someone went to great lengths to keep themselves clear of it, The domain registration is cloaked and the site is hosted on James Deens Server and IP address, but we all know that at best James is a tag along on this not a real principal.
yup the same one in the FSC and in APHSS/PASS, so there ya have the FSC pushing this thing and no doubt behind the donations.
Now whats interesting here is that the attny is a workers comp attorney, for employers. That makes her involvement in a talent organization more than just suspect, it makes it a conflict of interest.
A word of honesty to talent, The Free Speech Coalition is NOT on your side, has never been on your side and never will be on your side, you cannot trust them or anyone associated with them, they will sell you out in a heartbeat.
I support a talent organization whole heartedly but not one that is propped up by The Free Speech Coalition, that’s just a scam.
If APAC wants any shot at legitimacy they had better completely divorce themselves from The FSC but then we all know that aint gonna happen.
Beware of wolves wearing the clothing of sheep.
32 Responses
Who is The Adult Performer Advocacy Committee Really? http://t.co/a1OexfFdmh
Remember when the FSC showed up in Sacremento on the day that AB332 got put in the suspense file. Remember how the FSC didnt even know the routine procedure in Sacramento, and one of Isador Halls aids made the statement that it would be helpful if these people were actually familar with how things really work. Karen Tynan was one of those in Sacramento that day.
Karen Tynan is also listed as a creditor in the AIM bankruptcy papers, being owed $8299.00.
I dont think even the dumbest person in porn believes this is a “Performer” organization.
Let us not forget the FSC and their Vobile non-compete contract locking out other anti-piracy companies from participating (with the exception of Dianne’s good buddy Allison). Dianne, you are a piece of work… seriously.
http://karentynanattorney.com/
Here is all the proof you need to show that this organization has nothing to do with defending performers rights. Right here on Karen Tynans own website she is described as, in her own words “Specializes in defending California empolyers in occupational health and safety proceedings.”
James Deen, Stoya, Kayden Kross, are all of you really this stupid? Then again, nobdy ever accused any of you of being smart now have they? You are dupes, ass kissing cock suckers who will do anything for a dollar, even pretend that this organization is by and for the performers. How can you look your fellow performers in the face while being a part of a scam like this? Do you dupes even know what Karen Tynan does, probably not.
Mike, do you ever ask your friend Kayden how she could get involved with this bullshit, or is it all just about kissing the right ass so she can continue to get work?
Only in porn would someone say that an attorney who specializes in defending employers in OSHA cases could lead a performer(employee) advocacy group.
@ Jilted Yes I do really believe that James Deen and Stoya and Kayden are very stupid along with Charity Bangs and every other young, stupid ass porn performer today.
All the smart ones left and all the STUPID ones stayed. The Fucking Stupid Clowns is a fucking joke with a Porn set PA on the board. Where is the Talent on the board?
I promised myself that in 2014 I was going to be more positive and like mom used to say if u don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all… so I’m not going to say much yet about APAC… with that preface I will say I’m disappointed that the performers I am close with that have helped me with FORPORN, myself included, who have been very open and public about the issues we find near and dear, were never informed or saw anything about the formation of this group. When we formed FORPORN, we spent MONTHS soliciting and picking board members as well as ideas. We held many meetings, all public and advertised. Any group that claims to advocate for performers but doesn’t solicit the participation of performers is suspect to me. Add the fact you pointed out, that they are requesting money, and you have a recipe for disaster. Sorry if that sounds negative, I really do hope they are genuine and make a difference, and if I am ever approached to take part, I’d give it the same drive and determination I give to FORPORN, period.
And you’re basing this judgement of me on what? Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve never met, and if you’re going to call someone you’ve never met stupid, then you truly are the pot that called the kettle black.
How did the adult industry find Karen Tynan. LOL Jeffery Douglas did a google search for OSHA lawyers and found her name. Literally picked her name out of the hat on Google.
Maybe thats how they found Dianne Duke. This how your FSC operates you fools, Kayden, James,, Stoya,,they picked her name out of a hat and now she runs your ‘performer advocacy group.” I have to go with Rob Black on this one, you guys are a bunch of retards. (ROB, I dont necessarily disagree with what you say, just the way you say it makes it impossible to take you seriously, and impossible for others to rally behind you.) Rob, you need a lesson in real politics, you have so much ammunition but you cant shoot straight.
Charity, this organization is run by a lawyer of the FSC who specializes in defending employers in OSHA/workers comp cases. Do you think for one minute that this organization is about protecting performers when they have the FSC who represents producers leading the organization.
If they ask you to join please tell them to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Please tell us youre not serious about joining this group if asked!!
You may very well be right about their motives but I’m not going to judge without appropriate info. And the only way to get enough info is to be involved. I’d join if asked but if I ever got the feeling their motives are less than genuine I’d be their biggest enemy.
Actually Kayden is not a part of this org and she is retired, she went to one meeting but when it became apparent that the FSC would be pulling the strings she simply recused herself.
Really? Good info. I wish I could pick her brain for a few min one day on how to make FORPORN sucessful.
I will hook you two up but right now she is due to give birth any min give it a few weeks
Oh, completely understood. I’m very patient and would love u forever if u did that! Would at least have to buy u a beer next tine I’m coming thru atl! 🙂
“… your chances of catching an STD in porn are about 40 to 60 times greater than picking up a random person in a bar and having sex with them.”
Please state your source.
The search function is your friend
http://www.mikesouth.com/mike-south-commentary/new-study-released-yersterday-on-std-rates-in-porn-6809/
http://www.mikesouth.com/mikesouth-exclusives/an-interview-with-the-principle-author-of-the-most-recent-std-study-6812/
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/std/docs/afi/KerndtAFISTD.pdf
@d0125,
For years county health recieved std reports from AIM Helathcare, several thousand between 2003 until they closed. But the county only recieved positive reports but did not know how many total tests were done, that is, they didnt know how many negative reports there were. When the county did their statistics they relied on public statements, mostly from Sharon Mitchell, that AIM tested between 2500 and 3000 performers monthly. That is where the county came up with their 10x higher rate. But their is a major flaw in this, and that is, AIM actually tested about 900 to 1100 performers a month, not 2500. ANd the county only counted AIM reports. It is common knowledge that performers used a number of other clinics, West Oaks Urgen Care, Tarzana Treatment center, Coldwater Community Clinic, just to name a few. And AIM only did urine tests, and did not test for oral or anal infections, which the study Mike linked to showed a frightenly high infection rate.
Rest assured, the adult industry is a CESSPOOL of std’s, and the industry’s own testing program proves it. The industry always claims to be the most tested workforce in the nation, the problem is the industry will NEVER tell you the results of those tests, and for good reason. If the legal authorities could prove the real rateof infection the authoritieswould be forced to act.
Do you think the FSC hired Karen Tynan to help them follow OSHA and workers comp laws, or to help them get around those laws? This alone should give you “the feeling” that their motives are less than genuine.
And kudos to you for wanting REAL change.
I wish Kayden well during her retirement and hope her child is born healthy. If you are reading this Kayden I have one piece of advice — take the epidural. Yes there is a chance of complications but women that I know that refused the eppie mainly regret going through that much pain.
@MikeSouth : I read the study by Cristina Rodriguez-Hart and there is nothing there that would allow one to conclude “… your chances of catching an STD in porn are about 40 to 60 times greater than picking up a random person in a bar and having sex with them.”
@Jilted : Granted having the results of West Oaks Urgent Care, Tarzana Treatment Center, Coldwater Community Clinic, etc. would give a better idea of the rate of STDs in the porn community, 1100 performers per month by AIM is more than sufficient for statistical validity.
And in the conclusion of the “Sexually Transmitted Infection Testing of Adult Film Performers: Is Disease Being Missed?” study, the authors state :
“Because performers in the AFI are a highly stigmatized population and are a difficult population to identify for any study, we used a convenience sample of performers who sought services at a trusted primary care clinic, which may have introduced selection bias. … In addition, we do not know why each participant was seeking care when he/she was recruited. Our sample could therefore represent a group who felt that they were at high risk for STIs or specifically seeking treatment of a known STI, thus overestimating positivity.”
@d0125,
The industry has all the stats they need. They have YEARS of testing, yet they refuse to put out their own stats, and I contend it is because those stats would prove the industry is a cesspool of stds. Ff the industry’s own stats showed how low the rate is they would have no problem making those stats public. And compiling statistics is in no way a privacy violation.
Your quote from the study also points out somehting the industry jst doesnt like to talk about. The study was done as West Oaks Urgent Care, which begs the question, why are performers going to West Oaks for std testing,,,,,,is it because they are just goingto keep working with their clean AIM test, when they highly suspect that they have an infection? This same disclaimer would also bolste the argument that AIM std reports are lower than they would normaly be if these performers werent going to other clinics.
In this study, the majority of the participants were within the 30 day testing period of the industry, that is, they had clean tests from AIM on the day they went to West Oaks. This is a common practice in the industry, to go around the established testing in order to keep working. Performer Layla Jade wrote about this back in 2005 on AVN.
THEY HAD CLEAN AIM TESTS ON THE DAY THEY WENT TO WEST OAKS. Any comment on this d0125. Why wouldnt they go to AIM, where the tests are cheaper than West Oaks. and the turn around time shorter? Got an answer for this d0125, we’d like to hear it.
d0125, you wrote,”1100 performers per month by AIM is more that sufficient for statistical validity” You are 100% correct, so why did they never report on the rate of infection? The TRUTH about the true rate of disease is something the industry fears more than anything. If AIM’s stas proved a low rate they would have released them every month, but they never did, because the truth would not be kind to the industry.
@Jilted :
“The industry has all the stats they need. They have YEARS of testing, yet they refuse to put out their own stats, and I contend it is because those stats would prove the industry is a cesspool of stds. If the industry’s own stats showed how low the rate is they would have no problem making those stats public.”
This may very well be true, but without proof it’s just speculation on your part. Maybe the industry simply did not want to be burdened with publishing any statistics which they legally were not obligated to do. Maybe their attorneys advised against it for privacy reasons or other reasons unknown. Truth is, we just don’t know.
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“In this study, the majority of the participants were within the 30 day testing period of the industry, that is, they had clean tests from AIM on the day they went to West Oaks. … THEY HAD CLEAN AIM TESTS ON THE DAY THEY WENT TO WEST OAKS.”
No, that is not correct. The report states “most performers (69%) had recently worked in an adult film production within the past 30 days” There is no mention of AIM or when they performed within that 30 day period. So we have no way of knowing if they really had an STD (despite having a clean STD result from their previous test) or if they acquired the STD during one of their shoots within that 30 day period.
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“The study was done as West Oaks Urgent Care, which begs the question, why are performers going to West Oaks for std testing,,,,,,is it because they are just going to keep working with their clean AIM test, when they highly suspect that they have an infection?”
Again, pure speculation on your part. However, if true then that would completely invalidate the “Sexually Transmitted Infection Testing of Adult Film Performers: Is Disease Being Missed?” study.
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If you don’t like the numbers reported by Los Angeles County Department of Public Health because you feel crucial data is missing, then OK. However, you can’t adjust the figures up (or down) based on speculation. The only thing you can conclude is that we don’t have any reliable numbers.
The study says 69% had worked in the last 30 days,,,that means they either had a clean AIM test, or worked without an AIM test.
The study name Dr Riggs, and on the first page names West Oaks Urgent care.
Why would the study be invalid because it wass at west oaks. If anything is invalid it is the industries own claims that their testing program works, after all, look at how many are going outside the established program.
And I jusst love the constant industry line about getting the disease on or off set. The FACT is, once you have the disease you bring it with you every time you go to work, and you expose every person you work with.
Also, the report itself outlines the exact methodology of how the participants were selected, and the participants chosen.
The numbers from AIM are very reliable, and AIM reported THOUSANDS of stds, and those were only Gonnorrhea and chlamydia, THOUSANDS!!!!
What might be invalid is AIM’s stats, because their patients were going elsewhere to get tested and treated before coming in for their :”industry” tests at AIM. If all the people who constantly went elsewhere had always gone to AIM thoose THOUSANDS of stds that AIM did report to the county would even be higher.
Nice try d0125but again, another epci failure. The industry has the stats, they just dont want to give them out, for obvious reasons.
A large focus of the study was, “Are diseases being missed.” This is because AIM only did urine tests, and not throat or anal swabs. And the results showed a very high rate of throat and anal disease that would not be detected by the AIM urine test.
Dont you think it is ridiculous that the industry still does not test for oral or anal gonnorhea or chlamydia, bothe of which can remain unsymptomatic for a long period of time.
Try as you might d0125, the idnustry is a cesspool, AIM proved it, this study proves it. The THOUSANDS of positive std reports sent to the county by AIM are very reliable.
Dr Riggs and West Oaks Urgent Care are right on the very first page. Even you fellow industry aplogist Mark Fatboy Kernes acknowlegded this right here on this site, and on LIB.
“The study says 69% had worked in the last 30 days,,,that means they either had a clean AIM test, or worked without an AIM test. ”
The study by Cristina Rodriguez-Hart never mentions AIM. This is either a misread on your part or just pure speculation. As you previously noted, there are other testing facilities (West Oaks Urgent Care, Tarzana Treatment Center, Coldwater Community Clinic, etc).
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“Why would the study be invalid because it wass at west oaks?”
You need to reread what I wrote. I stated “… if true then that would completely invalidate the “Sexually Transmitted Infection Testing of Adult Film Performers: Is Disease Being Missed?” study.” The invalidity of the study has nothing to do with the facility, but rather with the reasons why the patients in the study went there. I’ll quote what BT wrote at http://www.mikesouth.com/mikesouth-exclusives/an-interview-with-the-principle-author-of-the-most-recent-std-study-6812/comment-page-1/#comment-6645 :
“If you study the incident rate of people with cancer who go to Sloan Kettering, you’ll find that it’s very high because Sloan Kettering treats only cancer. But, if you study the incident rate of cancer among people in a community who go to a particular clinic that treats a wide variety of medical concerns, you’ll get a different look that is more representative of the rate in that population.”
So if, as you suggest, performers went there because they suspected they really had an STD, then the results of that study would be invalid because we have no way of knowing if it truly represented the general porn performer population.
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“The numbers from AIM are very reliable, and AIM reported THOUSANDS of stds, and those were only Gonnorrhea and chlamydia, THOUSANDS!!!!”
I don’t know what THOUSANDS!!!! really means to you, but here are the numbers from 2004 to 2009 : “2,396 cases of Chlamydia (CT), 1389 cases of gonorrhea (GC), and five syphilis cases among AFI performers”. Source : http://file.lacounty.gov/bc/q3_2009/cms1_137588.pdf
Make up your mind. Either the AIM numbers are reliable or they’re not. You can’t have it both ways. If they are reliable, then you need to accept the LA County numbers : “AFI performers experience significantly higher rates of infection (20%) than the general public (2.4%)
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“Nice try d0125 but again, another epci failure.”
No, actually your complete lack of knowledge about statistics, testing methodologies, or how to construct a logical argument mark you as the epic failure.
AIM’s numbers are correct, they are just incomplete, because the same patients that went to AIM also went to other clinics for the same ailments.
And the county’s stats are based on the assumption that Sharon Mitchell was telling the truth when she said they tested 2500-3000 a month, when it was really about 1000.
But you fundamentally misunderstand the study that was done. It wasnt about the rate of stds, it was about how many stds are missed becuase AIM only did urine tests. The study showed that a high percentage ofthe infections found in this study would have been missed by AIM because AIM did not test orally or analy. If those same peoplewho went to West Oaks hadgone to AIM, a large number of them would have recieved negative test results, and gone right on working while infectedin the throat and anus. This was the purpose of the study, to show how many stds the AIM system MISSED on a regular basis.
One thing that is more important is Safety and that is what is very much needed.
It would be interesting to have the porn-only VD results from West Oaks Urgent Care for sure. If I understand correctly that is where Dr. Riggs treats porn stars all day (I could have the clinic wrong, though). However, even Dr. Riggs’ clinic treats many non-porn performers so unless the results are sorted by occupation they would be useless.
Also I did take a look at West Oaks’ website, it says they have two clinics within five miles of each other. I wonder why, they could save a lot of money by having one large clinic in the area rather than two small ones.
When a person tests positive for an Std it is reported to the county health department on what is called a Morbitity Report. That report contains a space for ‘occupation.’ They are sorted by occupation. AIM also tested ‘civilians’ and the argument that the county didnt know if a person worked in porn has been used for a long time. Of course, as usual, the people in the industry making this argument are uninformted as to the FACTS of what gets reported. The other argument is that the numbers are artificially high because talent would retest too soon after being medicated and get a false positive which was re-reported. That too is a lie, the county did not count any tests that was less than 30 days old on the same person.
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/acd/reports/cmr-h-794.pdf
Interesting. I took a look at your link. It states that that form is not for use in reporting VD but it sounds like the docs have a reasonably complete form to fill out. As long as the doctor fills in the occupation (and talent doesn’t lie about their true occupation and say they flip burgers or something for a living) the county can separate cases of VD by occupation. (Off subject but on the form) it is even more interesting that TB cases have to be reported within 24 hours. In Michigan (to my understanding) nowadays doctors just treat TB themselves without a report to the state. I wonder if CA still quarantines TB patients as well.
Here is the HIV report form for LA County: http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/dhsp/ReportCase/AdultHIV-AIDSCaseReportForm.pdf
Here is the non-HIV VD reporting forms: http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/dhsp/ReportCase/STD_CMR.pdf