ratbastid

I'm sorry, feelsgood, but that's a painfully ignorant and uncompassionate response to what amounts to a very public tragedy for a handful of people.

I've been following this story with a fair amount of morbid curiosity. Turns out the system for keeping porn clean is this: if you want to work, you get a monthly HIV test at the Adult Industry Medical (AIM) office. They keep records on who's been tested and when, and they keep up with who's "worked" with whom. You show up on set with your most recent clean bill of health, and you show it to everybody who asks (somebody from the production company and all your fellow actors, most likely).

Within hours of Darren James' positive test, AIM had lists of people in the first and second generations of exposure (the "quarantine" list referred to in this article), and called each of those people in for tests.

A lot of people have been pointing fingers at AIM and Dr. Sharon Mitchell, the porn star turned sexual health advocate who runs it, since the outbreak. But the thing is, AIM has kept the industry clean since 1999, when Tony Montana contracted HIV. And that was the only infection since 1996, when AIM was founded.

Solutions? Well, one option is to supplement monthly blood testing with weekly testing using the faster but less reliable methods now available. Although those tests may not show HIV antibodies until 3 to 6 months after exposure, there is a chance that infection may be caught earlier, and it's almost certainly worth the cost. Just ask the three performers (so far) who will be living with HIV for the rest of their lives.

In the meantime, porn companies have suspended filming for 60 days until everybody on the first- and second-generation lists can get tested twice. Some companies have pledged to institute all-condoms-all-the-time policies, which can only be good for safe sex acceptance in the country at large.