California’s multi-billion-dollar adult entertainment industry has been left reeling after a porn actor tested positive for HIV.
The revelation led to two of the industry’s biggest companies shutting down production and a scramble to find partners who may have been exposed by the actor, whose identity and gender have not been released.
The actor was a patient of the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, a San Fernando Valley clinic that caters for porn actors.
Clinic spokeswoman Jennifer Miller told the Los Angeles Times that efforts were under way to notify individuals who may have had sexual contact with the actor.
Wicked Pictures and Vivid Entertainment said they stopped production as a precaution.
Public health officials have said the widespread lack of condom use on porn sets puts performers at risk of contracting HIV and other diseases. However, adult film producers say viewers find them to be a turn-off.
Last year, a woman tested positive for HIV immediately after making an adult film, while in 2004, an HIV outbreak affecting several actors spread panic in the industry and briefly shut down productions at several California studios.
Porn actors are required by law to test negative for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases within 30 days of going to work on a film.
Safety officials are considering strengthening rules designed to prevent transmission of disease to specify the use of condoms in the adult entertainment industry.
Aids Healthcare Foundation president Michael Weinstein said his organisation has been advocating a tightening of the rules, and the adult entertainment industry and AIM clinic would “do everything in its power to prevent us from knowing who was impacted.”
Mr Weinstein said the latest case is the ninth HIV-positive adult film star to be treated at the AIM clinic since the 2004 outbreak.
AP