Cal/OSHA Comments on New Pathogen Standards for Porn

LOS ANGELES—In comments made to the Daily News in the aftermath of a protest yesterday by AIDS Healthcare Foundation and its supporters in front of the downtown Los Angeles offices of Cal/OSHA, the state workplace safety regulator's chief counsel Amy Martin provided some snippets of information about the progress Cal/OSHA has made in its reconsideration of blood-borne pathogen standards for adult entertainment productions. Currently, the applicable standards are found in Section 5193 of Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations, which was originally created for hospital ICU wards, but which the state uses for other industries in which a risk of exposure to bodily fluids is present. However, a quick perusal of the many and specific preventive measures imposed by Section 5193 makes clear that many of them have no application to risks confronted by adult performers. It is for that reason that Cal/OSHA committed to reformulating the standards for the industry, and also to receiving input from talent as well as doctors and other health care (and legal) professionals. An alleged early draft of proposed changes was released by Cal'OSHA last year, though AVN reported at the time that "the proposed rules reflected in the document are likely to change somewhat before implementation." In yesterday's Daily News article by Susan Abram, chief counsel Martin pushed back against the somewhat obnoxious claim by AHF that Cal/OSHA was dragging its feet and should have long since had new standards in place, telling Abram that regulating porn "isn’t as easy as requiring hard hats for construction workers, or gloves for nurses." She added, “Medically, how do you best protect workers who are exposed in this manner? There is not an agreement across the board with this, not even in the industry itself.” That said, she confirmed that a draft has been completed and sent to the state standards board, and that it will be discussed in March. She did not indicate if it was the same draft as the one released last year. In the meantime, of course, Section 5193 remains the prevailing standard for porn shoots in the state, which kind of puts the lie to AHF's refrain yesterday that, as Abram put it, "the time has come for all porn production sites to have the same health and safety laws as any workplace." Quite literally, they already do, per Section 5193, though many requirements of that section are not followed by adult producers—and of particular interest, there is one industry to which Section 5193 statutorily does not apply: construction. Go figure!