An AIDS advocacy group has filed complaints with state officials against 16 production companies that show unprotected sex in porn movies.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed the action with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (CalOSHA), alleging the practice amounts to unsafe behavior in a California workplace.

We will not stop until there is a policy of requiring condoms to be used in porn, foundation president Michael Weinstein said.

By law, U.S. adult film actors must prove they have tested negative for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases within 30 days of going to work on a film.

CalOSHA spokesman Dean Fryer said the regulatory agency requires workers in any industry where there is a possibility of transmission of fluids, including health care and adult films, to reduce the risk of disease transmission.

The employers of porn actors are required to provide a safe and healthy work environment, Fryer said.

Nearly 60 adult DVDs accompany the complaints against Hustler Video, Maverick Entertainment, Vivid and other porn production companies in Los Angeles. Many people in the multibillion-dollar industry oppose the use of condoms in the films.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt told The Associated Press, people who enjoy viewing adult films do not want to see people using condoms.

California State regulators have agreed to consider a request from an AIDS advocacy group calling for mandatory use of condoms in porn films.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation submitted the request Thursday at a meeting of the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board.

The advocacy group wants current rules requiring healthcare workers to wear gear that prevents the spread of disease to extend to adult film sets.

The Cal/OSHA board has 60 days to evaluate the petition and issue a response.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has dismissed a petition seeking a court order to compel county public health officials to require condom use on porn sets or take other reasonable steps to stem the spread of disease.

The petition, filed by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, contended that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has passively observed an ever-growing epidemic within the porn industry.

Words alone cannot fight disease, the petition said. For over a decade, county health officials have talked, watched, written and analyzed. What county health officials have not done is act.

Judge David P. Yaffe rejected the petition, noting that the county has broad discretion in how it oversees public health.

The AIDS advocacy group sued the county in July. The action came weeks after an adult-film actress tested positive for HIV and county health officials released data that showed 18 HIV cases and more than 3,700 cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis had been reported since 2004 by a San Fernando Valley-based clinic that mainly serves the porn industry. Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation officials said at the time that the majority of the cases did not involve working adult film performers.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation officials plan to appeal the decision and said they would press for change. We just hope the county will do the right thing without being compelled to do it by a court, foundation President Michael Weinstein said. This is going to be a years-long battle and it's going to have its ups and downs, but we know in the end that public health is going to win.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation plans to file a complaint with three Florida citizens to the state Department of Health over the lack of use of condoms in adult film productions.

Michael Weinstein, president of the AHF, said the organization has decided to ramp up its efforts beyond California, where the bulk of porn is shot: In light of the tremendous growth of adult film production in Florida, particularly in Miami and in response to repeated threats from California producers who say they will leave California and take their productions — and jobs — to other states including Florida, AHF decided to expand our adult film worker safety campaign to include Florida.

This is why we are filing 'sanitary nuisance' complaints with Florida health officials — to press for the enforcement health statutes which we believe should require the use of condoms in all adult films produced in Florida.

Florida does not have designated occupational safety and health divisions like California, Weinstein noted.

Weinstein said that AHF will back its Miami complaints with evidence from 10 adult DVDs and streamed online videos filmed or produced in the Miami area in which many performers do not wear condoms. Two of the films cited include South Beach Cruisin' No. 2, a double-DVD film by Josh Stone Productions, and Barely Legal: Miami Girls, produced by Hustler Video.

Too many adult production companies, too many porn actors. That's what Los Angeles County's public health chief told three AIDS Healthcare Foundation members who showed up at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting demanding to know why the county won't require performers in porn films to wear condoms.

The three foundation members hijacked the meeting. The issue of condoms and porn weren't even on Tuesday's Supervisors Board meeting agenda.

But county officials reacted to the group and told them that they should be realistic to the situation. Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the county's public health chief, told the foundation members that regulating the porn biz is very, very difficult to implement.

There are roughly 200 production companies with about 1,200 actors, he said. All you need is a room and a camera and a bed, basically, to do this kind of shoot, and we have no ability to police this.

Fielding said that it would be difficult for public health officials to prove if the porn videos were shot in L.A. County or elsewhere, because producers often do not apply for filming licenses.

We worked closely with county counsel trying to see if there's some other way that we could effectively do this under existing authority, and what we've come up with is, basically, we're unlikely to to have an effective approach to prevent them from acquiring preventable STDs, Fielding said. It's very disturbing to come to that conclusion, but we also have to be realistic.

Fielding said the California Legislature would need to green light legislation that would require condom use for porn shoots.

The directors of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (CalOSHA) Standards Board have voted unanimously to form an advisory committee to study the possibility of requiring condoms to be used in adult movie production.

The board's vote capped a civil but contentious public meeting, where present and former adult performers spoke of their experiences on adult sets, and advocates from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (whose petition to the board prompted the meeting) as well as former performer Shelly Lubben's Pink Cross Foundation added their own spin on what several referred to as a health care crisis affecting the adult industry.

A federal agency is investigating whether an HIV testing clinic funded by the adult film industry routinely releases health information about actors to porn producers, violating the actors' privacy, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation announced.

The US Department of Health and Human Services investigation is in response to a written complaint from the foundation alleging violations of federal patient confidentiality laws.

In its complaint filed earlier this year, the foundation alleged that the clinic's release of patient data on HIV and STD infections via an online database violates the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA.

During a March protest outside the clinic, Whitney Engeran-Cordova, director of the foundation's public health division, said there is a contradiction between AIM vigorously blocking the release of patient data to state workplace safety officials, yet making the same data available to adult film producers.

The foundation has pushed for regulations that would require porn actors to wear condoms to slow the spread of sexually transmittable diseases. It also wants access to the health data of porn actors to track the spread of STDs in the industry.

Some adult filmmakers have objected, saying condoms can detract from their movies. Instead, they contracted with AIM to ensure actors are disease free before they have sex.

According to a press release issued by AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the unnamed Chief Legal Counsel for the Florida Department of Health—no such entity is listed on the Health Department's website, and each county appears to have its own Chief Legal Counsel—has begun an investigation based on complaints filed by three residents at AHF's urging, alleging the lack of use of condoms in films produced by Florida's fast growing adult film industry.

The complaints are based on a skewed reading of Florida's Sanitary Nuisance statutes which, though vaguely worded, appear to refer to such tangible nuisances as rotting garbage, liquid chemical waste or smoke, and machinery that may pose a risk when operated. Regarding the nuisance, the Department of Health is authorized to undertake required correctional procedures, including the removal of same if necessary, creating, keeping, or maintaining such nuisances. Moreover, maintaining a sanitary nuisance is a second-degree misdemeanor under Florida law, punishable by a $500 fine but not imprisonment. Nothing in the statute raises the offense level for multiple violations.

In its press release on the Florida situation, even AHF hedges its claims about the law, noting that adult producers shooting non-condom content only arguably fall under the definition of a 'sanitary nuisance', and although the release refers at one point to a local sanitary nuisance ordinance for Miami-Dade County, where much of Florida's adult production takes place, it's unclear (at least from the press release) whether that county's Director of Public Health has agreed to investigate AHF's claims.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a nutter group attempting to force adult performers to use condoms and dental dams in every sex scene, has just been handed a setback by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  HHS has ruled that its Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has no jurisdiction over AHF's complaint that AIM Healthcare Foundation had violated performers' rights in asking them to sign a voluntary waiver of medical privacy over their AIM test results.

The US adult industry has achieved absolutely minimal cases of AIDS/HIV by requiring performers to be tested rather than insisting on condoms. The nutters of AHF are trying to throw a spanner in the works by suggesting that test results can't be made available to porn producers on privacy grounds.

The ruling is a victory—albeit possibly a fleeting one— for AIM, which has been under attack for more than a year by AHF, which has made complaints about AIM's testing and medical confidentiality protocols to several state and federal government agencies. However, it is likely that AHF will attempt to refile its complaint with another agency within HHS.

Anti-porn nutters have filed a legal safety complaint against the porn magazine mogul Larry Flynt, citing an unsafe work environment.

The AIDS Health Foundation sent an arsenal of DVDS of his films to the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health Office in Los Angeles. In only one of the 100 DVD's, is there any indication of an actor using protection, according to AHF spokesman Ged Kenslea.

The AHF's premise is that, by Flynt not requiring the use of condoms in his films, it sets up a growing body of evidence that the lack of use promotes the spread of STD's, specifically, AIDS. They are petitioning the state regulatory agency to order the use of condoms on all porn film sets.

Flynt begs to differ. According to Micahel Klein, president of Larry Flynt Productions, the request by the AHF is overbearing and unreasonable. He says that the end-user of the films will not watch people engage in sex who wear condoms. We won't budge when it comes to condomless productions, he said in a statement. That's what the consumer wants, and we deliver it.

The Federal statute regarding safe sex practices requires that actors in the porn industry be tested for HIV 30 days prior to the beginning of filming.

OSHA or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in California will investigate a complaint according to the merits of the case. Conversely, the alleged offending party can ask that an investigation be launched to prove that a complaint is without merit.