Dennis RomeroThe porn industry's official STD service announced this week that 300 adult performers have been tested following a syphilis scare started by one Mr. Marcus.
That's a lot of porn stars.
But it doesn't appear to be nearly enough for the industry to be able to say all performers have been tested.
Porn's leadership has said that this would last only two weeks:
The industry underwent a voluntary shutdown starting Aug. 20 following revelations that Mr. Marcus had contracted syphilis but allegedly continued performing with doctored or masked tests.
Credit: mrmarcus.com
While the L.A. County Health Department has reported nine or more positives for syphilis related to the industry, porn's STD service, Adult Production Health & Safety Services, says it knows of only two performers who have the disease, and that one of them is outside of California.
Its answer to the situation was not to halt production for 90 days, which is the time it could take for syphilis to show up in an infected person, but rather to treat the whole performer pool as if everyone has it.
APHSS:
Nearly 300 performers have been tested and treated for syphilis since Aug. 22. These include performers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and other locations nationwide.
… Testing/treatments continue to be offered this week.
The organization, set up by the industry lobbying group known as the Free Speech Coalition, says those tested and treated will have 10 days from their doctor's visit to return to work. For now, everyone in the APHSS' database is slated as “unavailable” for work.
Those who refuse to be treated with antibiotics will have to wait 90 days and come to work with a clean test after that, according to the service.
APHSS committee member Danny Wylde defended the decision to go ahead with treatment for all:
… There has been no proposed alternative to the APHSS protocol that addresses both the syphilis exposure as a concern and considers the reality that performers need to make a living.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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