Report: Trade Group Revives Database To Track Porn Star STDs
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A San Fernando Valley-based pornography trade group plans to revive a controversial database that tracks the sexually transmitted disease test results of adult performers, according to a report Wednesday.
Diane Duke, executive director of the Canoga Park-based Free Speech Coalition, which created the database, told the Los Angeles Times the new database, Adult Performer Health and Safety Services, will provide porn producers and agents with access to results from numerous testing facilities.
While the database will go online Friday, Duke estimates it will be at least two months before testing of
performers is complete and the database is fully functional.
Adult film performers must be tested every 30 days and show proof of a clean test before they perform, according to voluntary industry standards.
AIM Medical Associates P.C. had been operating the industry's database of test results before it closed in May while fighting a lawsuit that alleged it revealed performers' private medical information.
The new database will tell producers and agents only whether performers are available for work, not their specific test results, Duke told The Times.
She said the AIM clinic, formerly known as Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, closed for financial reasons.
AIM officials, who opened the Sherman Oaks-based clinic in 1998, had also drawn criticism for opposing condom use in porn and insisting that frequent tests could protect performers from HIV. They maintained that position even after a performer tested HIV positive at AIM last year.
Adding to the controversy, earlier this year information from AIM's database was posted online by Pornwikileaks, a website designed to identify porn performers.
Duke told The Times that computer experts affiliated with her group worked with the FBI's Los Angeles office to disable Pornwikileaks this month, and that the new database has been built to prevent such leaks.
(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
