The porn industry is looking at another moratorium this year as reports surface of a fourth confirmed HIV-positive test on Friday.
According to the Los Angeles Times, The Free Speech Coalition, responsible for monitoring testing for sexual transmitted diseases, confirmed the positive results. The name of the performer has not been released, but the trade group is working to identify any of the person's first-generation partners.
"We are taking every precaution while we do research to determine if there's been any threat to the performer pool," Free Speech Coalition CEO Diane Duke said in a press release. "We take the health of our performers very seriously and felt that it was better to err on the side of caution while we determine whether anyone else may have been exposed."
This would be the third moratorium in Los Angeles, Calif. this year. There have been a total of four confirmed HIV-positive tests in 2013.
"Are we still going to be having this argument when there's the 10th shutdown or 20th? Or the 50th infection?" Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, an advocacy group pushing for a statewide condom rule, told the LA Times.
The HIV-positive tests are fueling the condom debate in Los Angeles. Weinstein and other sexual health advocates are fighting to make it mandatory for adult film performers to wear condoms on set.
Cameron Bay and Rod Daily, two of the porn actors who tested HIV-positive, spoke out in September about their experiences in the industry during a news conference. Daily, who has been in the industry for 12 years, expressed the importance of using condoms.
"I've shot with HIV-positive people, used condoms and never been HIV-positive," Daily said. "If anything, I know that condoms do work. I was a guinea pig for that."
"I just don't know how an industry stands here and says they care so much about their performers and, a week after someone tests positive, they're out there shooting without condoms," Daily added. "Ultimately, it's a business, and their main concern is money and not their performers."
