Porn Actress Contracted HIV in 2009: Judge Blocks State Workplace Regulators From Peeking at her Medical Records
[Note edit, at bottom].
A previously unknown HIV case in porn was revealed this week after an adult performer sued California workplace regulators who wanted access to her medical records.
She won. A judge said that the California Division of Occupational Health and Safety didn't have a right to peek into her file as part of its inquiries into adult video and workplace safety practices.
In the process, though, we learned that between a 2004 outbreak and last year's positive test for actor Derrick Burts there was an actress who contracted it in 2009.
The ACLU was repping the woman, with legal director Peter Eliasberg stating:
You don't give up your right to medical privacy because of what you do for a living.
True that. A judge in Alameda County court agreed and told Cal/OSHA to keep its grubby hands off the woman's medical records.
Cal/OSHA responded that it didn't really want her records: It wanted to know who her "employer" was when she got HIV. They want to go after the porn producers who fail to require condoms for its performers, as it says is the law of the land.
The division can still appeal the ruling.
It all comes as the porn industry has been resisting efforts by the L.A.-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation to get state regulators to crack down on its lack of condom use.
The porn scene says people won't buy condom porn, and producers will just go out-of-state and underground, where things will be even less safe.
[Edit: We deleted reaction from AHF, which applied to another case, not this one].
[Los Angeles Times / Associated Press].
First posted at 8:02 a.m. on June 23.
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]
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