Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

The porn industry says it has a new STD testing system, including a facilities, that it will roll out for performers in the weeks to come.

The Adult Production Health and Safety Services program was announced this week by industry lobby the Free Speech Coalition. It's designed to fill the gap left by the demise of the Adult Industry Medical (AIM) Healthcare Foundation which, we were told, was essentially sued out of existence by the likes of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The AHF has been gunning for AIM because AIM provided an alternative to condom use — regular STD testing of performers — that it says doesn't fully protect them from the likes of HIV.

The industry desperately wants not to have to use condoms. It says people won't pay for condom porn, and if it's forced to use them, production will go out of state and underground — where things will be less safe.

But AIM's Achilles heel was Porn Wikileaks' publication of what appeared to be private medical records it kept online, ostensibly only so porn producers to check to see if a porn star has a clean bill of health.

(Actors used to just bring paper test results to the set, and we were told that the industry had to revert back to that system after AIM's bankruptcy last month).

Anyway, details of this new industry-backed testing system (the last one was an industry-backed testing system) haven't been rolled out, but FSC leaders have been saying for some time that they're ready to move on and replace AIM.

One thing seems clear: With a multi-billion-dollar industry directly and transparently behind this health-care endeavor, it might not be so easy to take it down with lawsuits.

It'll be interesting to see if Sharon Mitchell, the head of AIM, will reprise her role in the new FSC program.

Read more at our sister publication LA After Dark.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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