Porn Biz Not Helping HIV Investigation

Health authorities who ordinarily are able to trace a disease outbreak rapidly have been unable to do so in the case of a porn actor with HIV. A report says that studios and other performers have refused to cooperate, hindering progress into the investigation, the Associated Press reported on April 16.

The AP article drew on a Los Angeles Times article from the same day.

The Los Angeles Times reported that adult film actor Derrick Burts had sex with six men and ten women, almost all of them for work, during a two-month span between when he began making porn and his diagnosis. Burts was negative when tested on Sept. 3, 2010, only to test positive just over a month later. He had been making porn films since early August of the same year.

Two of the men with whom Burts worked in that two-month period were HIV+. Burts had previously said that he had used condoms when performing anal sex acts, but otherwise had not. Health authorities speculate that Burts contracted the virus during a one-month span from the middle of August to the middle of September, 2010.

The Times said that, according to Burts, 15 of his 16 partners were people with whom he had sex for work.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service's Dr. Francisco Meza has been working with the California Department of Public Health. Meza prepared a report in which he said that porn studios had stonewalled the investigation into Burts' HIV infection and the question of whether he might have transmitted the disease to others.

The LA Times reported in a Nov. 5, 2010, article that the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, a clinic affiliated with the porn industry, declared that Burts contracted the virus during a personal sexual encounter, rather than while on the job. The clinic also said that Burts had not infected any other actors.

But the clinic failed to make any records available to substantiate the claim, and the studios refused to help investigators.

"Limited cooperation from many adult film industry companies restricted this contact investigation," the report said. "Rarely did industry legal counsel give information for investigation."

The report was slated to be among those presented in Atlanta on April 15 at a CDC conference. However, the presentation did not go forward. The report had been presented in March during a smaller CDC gathering at San Diego State University, the LA Times reported, with the article adding that the newspaper had gotten a copy of the report.

In the course of the report, Meza noted that the investigation was further hindered by the use of stage names by the actors. Meza called for the studios to disclose the real names of the actors.

Investigators managed to locate five of the 15 actors with whom Burts had sex with for pornographic films, but they all proved unwilling to be of assistance.

Burts had initially been referred to as Patient Zeta, but he disclosed his identity late last year and called for condoms to be required for actors making adult films. Burts had appeared under two different pseudonyms. He was billed in heterosexual porn films as Cameron Reid. In gay porn he used the name Derek Chambers.

The AP story reported that AIM had issued a statement saying, "Patient Zeta acquired the virus through private, personal activity." But Burts told the Los Angeles Times otherwise.

"That's completely false," Burts declared. "There is no possible way. The only person I had sex with in my personal life was my girlfriend."