"Employer-employee issue"

"State, County May Require Condoms in Adult Films" (safe for work):

"You couldn't imagine a construction company sending a person to a work site without a hard hat, and nor should we think of someone in an adult-film industry production company working without a condom," said Peter Kerndt, director of the sexually transmitted disease program for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. "I look at this strictly as an employer-employee issue."

The state's Division of Occupational Health and Safety, which until now had ignored the adult entertainment industry, is on the case:

[OSHA] has two main regulations that would apply to the porn industry: illness-prevention program requirements and the blood-borne pathogen standard, Gard said.

The illness-prevention program requires employers to have written policies on reducing workplace hazards. The blood-borne pathogen standard requires use of universal precautions by people who come in contact with semen, vaginal secretions, blood and other bodily fluids that may transmit diseases.

"If you think of nursing or the healthcare industry, they have to use universal precautions," Gard said. "That means you always use a rubber glove when they draw blood."

In addition to a condoms-only policy, enforcement of existing state regulations would require porn producers to bear the costs of any testing, vaccinations and medical care associated with their employees in the workplace, Kerndt said. It would also mean an end to practices in some pornographic movies that involve contact with semen.

What took so long?

Guess: They're just porn people. All together now: They knew what they were getting into.

Do you think anyone who says that about sex workers would ever say to a nurse who gets accidentally infected with HIV because she handles blood, "Hey, you knew what you were getting into"?