Well…2014 was indeed the year of the attempted HIV Porn Scare, with the AB 1576 campaign going down in flames before the California State Senate….but I did say then that it would not be the last attempt by those wanting to impose condoms on porn shoots to attempt to shake the hive.

And this week, they almost got their panic. Almost, that is.

This whole story starts in September of this year, where an unnamed gay porn performer somehow managed to score a shoot in a gay video in Nevada while he was HIV+, and managed to infect at least one other gay performer in the process.  Note the qualifier here: a gay shoot. Bookmark that one, really, because it will come in quite handy later on.

Update: After further review of CDPH’s alert, I rephrase that last paragraph: the original performer had tested negative, then performed unprotected in two shoots within the two week period where he unintentionally infected at least one other performer. Still, the question remains of the length of time between his last negative test and the shoot, as well as how he got infected to begin with. Also, the second performer was infected in a subsequent shoot, not the original.

Now, the second performer was ultimately confirmed to have gotten infected in spite of confirmation that he had been tested and cleared of HIV previously prior to the fateful shoot. No confirmation yet, though, has been made of how soon either performer was tested prior to shooting that scene; but it was confirmed that the test used was the more traditional ELISA antibody test. That’s the HIV test that is 100% accurate when the antibodies are present, but also with a latency period of nearly 3 to 6 months where the antibodies can mask themselves in the bloodstream during seroconversion without detection. Bookmark that fact, too.

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