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In the news: Two male porn actors test positive for HIV

 
Published Dec. 31, 2014

Weaker standards

2 porn actors test positive for HIV on set

Two adult film actors have contracted HIV, with one most likely infecting the other during unprotected sex at a film shoot in Nevada where testing was less stringent than industry standards, officials said.

One of the actors had previously tested negative before a pair of film shoots, but then began showing symptoms during the second shoot and was later found to be HIV-positive, the California Department of Public Health said Monday. Another actor from the second shoot later tested positive, it said.

The infections came amid a major decline in porn filming in Los Angeles County — once the U.S. center of porn production — after the 2012 passage of a law requiring porn actors to use condoms. The number of porn filmmakers applying for shooting permits declined from 485 in 2012 to 40 in 2013.

The Free Speech Coalition, a California trade group for the adult film industry, said the pair of film shoots linked to the two infections occurred in September on a Nevada set using tests that do not detect HIV as early as tests done on sets that fully comply with industry standards.

An on-set HIV infection in 2004 had been the last such confirmed case.

Associated Press