Mandatory Condom Use Policy Would Drive Adult Film Industry "Underground," Opinion Piece Says

If a "crusading government takes advantage" of the recent HIV diagnoses of three adult film actors to "shut down the industry or mandate condoms," the pornographic film industry will "simply go underground," creating a serious public health problem, Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation Executive Director Sharon Mitchell writes in a New York Times opinion piece. "Self-policing" in the pornographic film industry "has worked," Mitchell says, adding that of the 80,000 HIV tests AIM has conducted since 1998, only 14 performers have tested positive. Instead of mandating condom use, state and federal health departments, AIM and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration should create a "seal of approval" system to reward "companies that use safe workplace and health care practices," Mitchell says. If companies such as Time Warner, Comcast, Marriott and Hilton all agreed to show only films with a seal of approval, filmmakers would have a "financial incentive" to require condom use, Mitchell says. Making condom use "financially attractive" is the "only way that we will be able to further limit the risk of infection to sex film actors and the people they come in contact with in their private lives," Mitchell concludes (Mitchell, New York Times, 5/2).

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