LOS ANGELES—For a while, we weren’t sure whether it was even possible for AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) to tell the truth about the adult entertainment industry—but we’re getting more sure that they can’t. The latest evidence? A press release posted yesterday, titled “AHF Calls Out Porn Industry Over Goggles Claim, other Scare Tactics on Updated OSHA Condom Regulations.”
“AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)—a fierce advocate for improved adult film worker safety—is calling out the adult film industry and its producers’ trade group, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) over its ongoing misleading and fear mongering claims about what the updated Cal/OSHA regulations actually entail,” the press release states in its opening paragraph, and if “fierce advocate” includes lying, deliberately misrepresenting others’ facts and positions and, yes, “fear-mongering,” then it’s hard to argue with that statement … other than the fact that Free Speech Coalition (and AVN) got it right about the effects of the revisions to the California Health Code, codified in new Section 5193.1.
Let’s examine AHF’s claims of FSC’s “misleading and fear mongering” one by one, shall we?
“Claim: Cal/OSHA’s proposed updated Bloodborne Pathogens Standard will require goggles in adult films.
“Fact: According to Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, ‘The proposed language does not include the word “goggles” anywhere. Only the current standard, Section 5193, cites goggles as a type of personal protective equipment because the language covers all types of industry workers in California…'”
AVN calls bullshit: Here’s what Section 5193.1 actually says: “Where occupational exposure remains after institution of engineering and work practice controls, the employer shall provide, at no cost to the employee, appropriate personal protective equipment such as, but not limited to, condoms, gloves for cleaning, and, if contact of the eyes with OPIM-STI is reasonably anticipated, eye protection. Personal protective equipment will be considered ‘appropriate’ only if it prevents blood or OPIM—STI from passing through to or reaching the employee’s eyes, mouth, or other mucous membranes, or non-intact skin under normal conditions of use and for the duration of time which the protective equipment will be used.” [Emphasis added.] Now, if AHF or Klausner has some idea as to how “blood or OPIM-STI” (that’s “other potentially infectious materials—sexually transmitted infections”) can be prevented from reaching a person’s eyes during, say, a blowjob without the male performer wearing a condom (which even under 5193.1 they’re not required to do except for vaginal or anal intercourse), we’d be anxious to hear it. But the fact is, there’s no way except for the blowjob performer to wear goggles (or a face shield).
