While thousands of adult films are produced every year, and hundreds of new entertainment workers break into the adult industry on a regular basis, the average person has reason for concern about contracting an STD from someone they met in a bar last weekend. It doesn’t seem to add up, does it?

The truth is, having sex with a porn star these days is probably safer than bringing someone home from the local pub. Since the formation of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation (AIM), HIV and STD rates in the industry are lower than ever.

AIM Health Care Foundation was founded by Dr. Sharon Mitchell, clinical sexologist and well known sexual health expert. After twenty five years in the adult industry as an actress, dancer, director and producer, Mitchell is now a world wide activist and sex educator striving for the rights and continued health of sex workers everywhere.

After the 1998 HIV outbreak in the industry involving many people she had previously worked with, Mitchell was catalyzed into founding AIM Health Care Foundation.

A non-profit organization, AIM is geared towards the physical care and emotional support of sex workers. Besides HIV and STD testing, the organization offers couples testing, gynecological services, alcohol and drug testing, and education and support groups.

Two fundamental reasons that AIM’s practices work so well in preventing the spread of HIV and STDs are due to the kinds of tests they use and the time in which they process the results. For detection of the HIV virus, AIM uses something called a PCRDNA test. The PCR (polymearase chain reaction) test has the capability of detecting the antibodies to the virus within just two weeks of exposure and contraction. “The PCRDNA test can find the antibody in as early as ten days,” says Mitchell. Its accuracy is meticulous; in over fifty thousand tests during the past five years AIM has only suffered two false positives, and more importantly, has never had a test come back falsely negative.

A two week window is a miracle detection period when compared to the standard tests done in family practices and other doctors’ offices. People who are getting tested for HIV in their primary care physician’s office receive what is called an ELISA test, which can take up to six months to detect the HIV virus antibodies after initial contraction. Another crucial benefit of AIM’s testing is that the organization lives by a next day turnaround; according to Mitchell, “[test results] are given back the very next day” after they are done, instead of the traditional two weeks that many HIV and STD clinics take for test processing.

One person working in adult entertainment with a six month period of not knowing his or her HIV status is downright dangerous, but multiply that by every person in the business and it can be a catastrophe. The approximate fourteen day detection period has saved a number of lives that we will never know; AIM has successfully squelched the HIV spread in the industry by mandating the use of the PCRDNA test. Due to AIM’s influence, use of the PCRDNA test is now protocol for the entire industry.

Without original PCRDNA test results, most producers will not hire a performer. Production houses everywhere largely comply with this regulation; Mitchell estimates that the “only smaller companies are the ones more likely to cut corners,” and even then it is a tiny percentage that do. It is fairly widely known that talent with a test over thirty days old could be hiding HIV.

Part of AIM’s tremendous success in HIV prevention is their commitment to release all test results to potential partners of performers in the industry. “The window periods are too long, and it is anonymous,” says Mitchell about the ELISA test, another issue that makes the test sub-par to that of the PCRDNA test. AIM is a firm believer in releasing results of tests; too many people could be concealing HIV if testing is kept confidential. People also forge tests in order to get work. “It’s hard to prove,” comments Mitchell about test forging. To combat this possibility, original test copies are required, bearing an embossed stamp to ensure validity before a production house will hire a performer.

According to Mitchell, the entire adult industry’s STD rate is 2.8% out of all their performers. New testing requirements for AIM include not only HIV tests, but also testing for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea. Syphilis testing is also mandated when talent enters the industry, and after that on a six month basis. Most of the adult industry is already backing AIM’s new requisites.

But that’s not the only recent development. AIM and Dr. Mitchell are stepping into uncharted territory with their recent work in the gay adult entertainment industry. “It’s an industry we were never able to tackle,” noted Mitchell. “It’s as though the straight and gay production houses belong to two completely independent film industries. They shoot differently, they have different formulas; they have larger budgets.”

But the most significant dissimilarity when it comes to HIV and STD prevention is that the gay industry does not follow the same testing regulations as the straight industry. “The gay industry treats everyone as though they are HIV positive,” maintains Mitchell. There are plusses and minuses to this kind of mindset; it means the stricter use of condoms, but it also means that testing is comparatively non-existent.

AIM’s testing practices and other protocol are relatively unused in the gay arena of the business. Mitchell and AIM are currently working on getting more of a foothold in the gay community, particularly around anonymity and the availability of test results. “We’re going to take some baseline statistics, work on partner notification for now,” said Mitchell in closing. Their goal with the mandate of test result releasing is to prevent talent’s ability to hide, and therefore possibly spread, HIV.

Judging from their enormous success in lowering STD rates and preventing the spread of HIV in the adult entertainment industry, it’s easy to think that AIM could have equally astounding results on the gay entertainment side as well as the straight industry. And what if their procedures were extended to traditional health care? Given some time, perhaps you might not have to worry quite as much about taking that someone from the pub home.