Porn Valley- AIM’s Sharon Mitchell made good on her word and came on the Alana Evans and Chris Evans KSEX, www.ksexradio.com show Thursday night. Mitchell addressed some of the controversy that has arisen from Tianna Lynn who’s now working in Prague for Elegant Angel.

Porn Valley- AIM’s Sharon Mitchell made good on her word and came on the Alana Evans and Chris Evans KSEX, www.ksexradio.com show Thursday night. Mitchell addressed some of the controversy that has arisen from Tianna Lynn who’s now working in Prague for Elegant Angel.

“There was an adult female performer who tested positive for antibodies of Hepatitis-C,” said Chris Evans in making the introductions. Chris conceded that he and Alana went out on a limb on their show two weeks ago by commenting that it isn’t right for performers to be working even if they have the flu.

“You should stay home- at least on that day.” As a result, Chris said a lot of people got mad at them. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t get it- you can’t get this, you can’t get that. My answer at that time was that most people saying you can’t get this or that aren’t even in the business. They’re not risking their lives. They’re not doing this.”

Chris said he was taking the stance of being on the side of performers who are taking risks. “I’m on your side. I would never risk anybody’s life or health. If I was sick I would not go to work. If I got something that determined that my career had ended, it would end.”

“We’re all a bunch of ignorant fools,” added Alana. “Even though I can do research on the Internet I don’t necessarily know what I’m talking about. I’m just as confused as everyone else. We need to find some answers and get some help.” Alana said she would hope that people would accept the fact that she and Chris were attempting to bring information to light. “And exactly what it is that’s going on. I’m not sure what’s safe and what’s not safe because I’m not a doctor.”

That said, Chris introduced Dr. Sharon Mitchell, “founder of AIM where everybody goes there to get tested.” Mitchell said AIM tests about 1200 performers a month and about 250 civilians. Chris thought that was an interesting stat in that others not in the industry were showing a sense of responsibility.

“People want to get the fastest, most accurate information regarding sexual heath,” said Mitchell. “That’s something AIM Healthcare specializes in. When I founded AIM in 1998 it was for the industry. There had never before been a testing program, even a protocol, and it was time. We had an HIV positive male actor that was going to anonymous clinics and forging his tests and knowingly giving girls HIV. It took me about four months to discover that. I discovered that sort of backwards. But that’s basically how I started the system of monitoring each month by PCR-DNA, using early detection. I tested all the girls’s partners but the unfortunate part of that was, that the more I tested partners and got a baseline- information of all the talent in the industry- the more positive HIV’s I found. There were five positive HIV’s- something told me it had to be an industry condition.”

Mitchell said she just had a feeling that it was someone in the industry.

“I went back one more week because I couldn’t find the person. I went back one more week and it just stuck out like neon- this person’s name [Mark Wallice]. Getting him in was very difficult. When I got him in it turned out that he was HIV positive. After this was found out and came to light, there was no more HIV epidemic.”

Chris asked Mitchell about how much resistance she received in attempting to implement the structures. Mitchell said when she went found AIM as a non-profit organization she got more resistance from within the business. “A lot of people often times don’t want to look into that mirror of healthcare. When it comes to healthcare and HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, people don’t want to think about it.”

Chris was in agreement. “A lot of people aren’t telling themselves the truth about what they’re doing, where they’re at and what the risks are involved. I think a lot of people just go blind to that and get caught up in the whole sex and rock n’ roll and the money.”

Alana said she was just two weeks into the business when the whole incident took place that Mitchell was referring to. “The man that was passing it- I met him.” Alana said she was asked to work with him. “And I thank my lucky stars that it just didn’t work out and it didn’t happen. It just spread like wild fire once you had opened that up.”

Mitchell said she had worked with Wallice, not referring to him by name, about a year earlier when he was a stunt cock. The person I was working with couldn’t get it up. So I myself was a director as well. And that’s another thing- in the early stage of starting AIM I thought there was a tremendous conflict of interest for me. A lot of the people that I had known, I had worked with and I was friends with, I was now their clinician.”

Chris said he wouldn’t feel half as comfortable working if people weren’t being tested. “It seems like the testing is getting more frequent and there’s a wider panel of testing now. When I first got in five years ago it was just HIV. That was it. It seems like it’s really gotten a lot better and I personally thank you for that.”

Mitchell notes that AIM is much more stringent now with new people coming into the industry.

“We’re suggesting that they don’t work for a couple of weeks. Or if they have to work, they work with condoms their first couple of weeks. This goes for travelers too. This was based on the last outbreak. There were a few things that we needed to improve upon. it’s a dangerous thing whenever you mix the American porn population with any type of new people, or people go abroad. I think we saw clear proof of that where a person came back an they were about seven days positive with HIV. Even the PCR-DNA test that we use which is the best test on earth will not pick up HIV at that early stage. So he went back to work for another two weeks an then infected three more women. We’ve got to be very careful. We’ve got to say it’s up to the talent, the producers and directors. We’re not the police department.”

Mitchell said she can’t go in a say, “Take your cock out of that vagina! I can’t do that. I can’t walk on a set and stop the set.” Mitchell says she’s tried to present accurate information and recommendations. “I think it’s up to us- given our own choices, we can be extremely responsible. But there’s always one or two people who are not going to listen.”

Chris said he and Alana froze in their tracks during the last outbreak. “What are we going to do? But other people were still working and calling us for work. We almost weren’t eating because we needed the money so bad. But we weren’t going to do it until things settled down.”

Mitchell thought it was a wise choice to do that.

“But the way the quarantine system works at AIM- but remember AIM is not set up to detect and stop HIV. It’s set up to detect and quarantine and prevent the spread of HIV. We’re aware that HIV is going to make its way periodically in the porn business. Because it’s in the general population and we’ve got a lot of people mixing and matching and people that are new and aren’t waiting the two weeks.”

Mitchell said if she was working now she’d wait for the second clean bill of health after two weeks had passed. “We do have clinical proof that PCR-DNA will pick up HIV in 14 days. Why not wait that two weeks. Make sure that person has a clean bill of health along with the recommendations of vaccinating everyone for hepatitis. I know that’s an issue we’re here to talk about.”

Besides that said Mitchell, there’s tuberculosis vaccinations and herpes check-ups “Birth control’s in place. And I think we’re getting more and more people educated about this.”

Chris imagined that there was percentage of responsible people in the nindustry. “And some people just don’t care. If they’re going to get something they’re going to take you with them. That’s been an unfortunate attitude. If you want to come over here and play and be a part of these things- unless you use a condom every single time you work, you’re going to get something.” Chris said he’s lost count of the number of needles in his ass for gonorrhea and Chlamydia. “Chlamydia saved my life,” he mused, noting that he was nursing a case of that during the HIV outbreak.

Chris said he and Alana opened up a can of worms regarding Tianna Lynn. “I’ve already proven that I don’t know much.”

Chris asked Mitchell to explain the realities of Hepatitis-C.

“It’s a viral infection of hepatitis,” Mitchell explained. “It works through antibodies. That’s how we detect for it and Hepatitis-C is a little bit different from A&B. Most of the people that enter the industry are vaccinated at AIM by the second month for Hepatitis A & B.” Mitchell said Hepatitis is contacted via feces in food. “Regardless of how well people clean and take enemas, they’re still going to be some bacteria there. That’s why we want to make sure that everyone’s vaccinated for Hepatitis-A.”

Alana asked if Hepatitis A or B immunization is something you might receive as a child during a normal course of receiving shots. Not necessarily said Mitchell. “What we have at AIM is an A ,B, C panel. I think it’s like 30 or 40 bucks. It tests you for Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C. It will show if you’ve been exposed or vaccinated. And Hepatitis B is passed through bodily fluids. Not just shit or sweat but vaginal fluids. A very small portion of people who have Hepatitis B are infectious. They are chronic carriers and can infect.”

Mitchell explained that with the test carried out at AIM you can see if you’ve been vaccinated for it at one time in your life or if you’ve had it. “Which works as its own vaccination. It works in your favor if you’ve had Hepatitis B before. It prevents you from getting it again.”

Chris notes that AIM has an abundance of information at its site. www.aim-med.orgMitchell said she put up a chart for Hepatitis A through E.

On the subject of Hepatitis-C, Mitchell said there isn’t a vaccination for it as yet. “We’re working towards that.”

Chris asked if it was fatal. “It depends,” said Mitchell who notes that a large portion of the population in the US has Hepatitis-C. “And a lot of people don’t know it. But some many people have it.”

However, Mitchell said that less than one percent have it to the point where there’s cirrhosis. “Which means scarring of the liver and they have to have a liver transplant.” Mitchell went on to say that Hepatitis C is “very tricky”.

“They used to call it non-A, non-B specific because they didn’t have a name for it. For her part, Mitchell being a recovering addict and IV drug user, was diagnosed positive somewhere between 1989 and 1992. Mitchell said, obviously, she was very concerned and did a lot of research.

“Obviously working with people without condoms in the porn industry and no testing system in place, I had to be very careful and very considerate of the people I was working with.”

Chris asked if antibodies was a precursor to having Hepatitis C. “The way we do research on this is a series of test,” said Mitchell. “First we do is the ABC panel. “If you’re found positive for the Hep-C antibody then we need to do some research.” To which, Lynn, according to Mitchell got immediately educated on Hep-C at AIM. “We did give her the second test which is called the liver function panel. It breaks down all the enzymes in your liver. There’s a lot of information that we can get on the stages of the Hep-C antibody in terms of looking at those enzymes.”

Mitchell said when you get the enzyme panel back you want to look for AFT or ALT. “Those two enzymes- if they are above normal- that’s when we know that the Hep-C MAY be causing a problem. May being the operative word.” Mitchell said that Lynn had no liver enzyme elevation whatsoever.

Mitchell said if there had been elevation what she would do as a clinician is a couple of things. “I would take a viral load test. If you’re concerned about this, you want to ask for the Hep-C Quant. It’s a PCR test but it’s a quantitative, not qualitative like we do for HIV. It’s going to measure the viral load. If the viral load is elevated that’s when some people can be infectious. But they’re not sure at what stage they are infectious. It seems even with a high viral load, most people are not transmittable.”

Mitchell said Hep-C is not from bodily fluids. “It’s not from shit. it’s not from excrement. It’s only blood-to-blood. That’s the only way you can transit the Hep-C virus. You would have to have not only a high viral load and a large amount of scarring, you would also have to be bleeding and the other person would have to have a microabrasion or sharing a needle. There would have to be some point of entry just like with the HIV blood to blood.”

Chris asked about an instance of having a hickey or your dick. “And a girl has her period. Are you basically at risk?” Mitchell said you could be at higher risk. “To break the skin, the blood has to come out. But there are a lot of things we call microabrasions. Even very small, small pus or small openings in the skin- any time someone has shaving bumps or the sphincter- there’s two sphincter muscles. They stretch pretty big. But even with as much as they can expand, there’s still a little bit of tearing. And that’s typically the point of entry.”

Mitchell said another thing to look at are STD’s. “When you have any sexually transmitted disease- you’re shedding cells. When you’re shedding cells you’re not only risking to transmit, but you’re also risking to get HIV. The cells that are shedding are a point of entry for the disease.”

Mitchell said when Lynn was tested for the antibodies and her liver enzymes were not elevated she saw no cause for concern. “At this time.” But, according to Mitchell, it’s always a good idea to monitor yourself with a viral load. “She made an appointment and went ahead and did.” Mitchell also said it’s a good idea to monitor for a viral load every six months. “Which I have been doing all my life and the virus has never progressed in my body as well.” Mitchell said if you’re doing anal that it’s a good idea to use a condom. “Just in case. And never, ever, ever should she work when she’s menstruating. That’s an obvious risk and something you just shouldn’t do.”

According to Mitchell if you have a viral load, your appearance would give it away. “A little yellow.” Also in Mitchell’s opinion anyone who has to resort to drugs or drink to do the job, should be doing something else. “This shouldn’t be something that you have to gear up to do or get fucked up to do. And it’s difficult to work with people that are loaded.” Chris agreed with that.

Asked if it was safe for Lynn to be working, Mitchell said it was. “I think it’s safe for her to be working. I suggested that she be a condom player. Just to eliminate any risk. I suggested to continue to get tested. I suspected that if we tested everyone in the industry- all 1200 actors we’d find a lot more Hepatitis-C than just this woman because of the fact that we’ve all had colorful backgrounds. Hence the case with her. She’s had some IV drug use in her background she was forthcoming in talking about. She knew that she was at risk for HIV and Hep-C. A lot of people that are IV drug users are at risk for both of those viruses.”

Mitchell also pointed out that when performers sign a release to share results openly it’s only for HIV, Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. Mitchell went on to state that there are a lot of people who are herpes-positive. “They’re on suppressive therapy. There are some very big mainstream non-condom actors and they have herpes. They’re taking medications not to spread them. We have people that have other types of health issues, that have kidney problems, that have other types of respiratory problems- people that are on medication in this industry. Not everyone is a 100% healthy. And we don’t share all those information. So it’s up to you- if you want to be an actor- and you have your own list of can dos and cannot dos, maybe one of your can dos- check your partner to see if their herpes negative, Hep-C negative- maybe you want to go down the whole gambit. But remember when you’re not using condoms, you can’t point fingers at people.”

Mitchell said HPV is another problem in the industry, translated, genital warts. “That’s something that shows up on women in a pap smear. That can often be seen on the head of penises and in and around the area.” Mitchell notes that a lot of these things including the hepatitises and their transmission are not protected even with condoms.

“If you’re coming to me and say Dr. Mitch, I want a 100% effective answer. I’m going to shoot a production and I want everybody to be tested for all this stuff, first of all you can’t test effectively for a lot of these diseases. Herpes- if you took ten people in a grocery line at Ralphs- seven would come back positive for the herpes virus. Three or four would get an outbreak and you don’t even know when. A lot of these things it doesn’t make sense to test for. It’s each person’s own responsibility.”

Chris brought up the government issue wondering if it’s leaning on Mitchell or using her as a bridge to gap a connection.

“The government, specifically, has made my personal life hell,” says Mitchell. “Since the last outbreak, that was the one shoe they were waiting on dropping to come in and lean on and try to get statistics.”

Mitchell offered a warning to producers and talent. “The government is there watching and waiting. There are motions from the City Council to the County Health Department that are chomping at the bit to get the AIM testing under their guise- which would be very specific. It would mean that we would have different types of testing. They want to implement lesser, more accurate forms of testing to slow the industry shooting rate, which they don’t understand, nothing will. There’s a lot of misunderstanding on the government. They don’t know what AIM deals with every day. To them, it’s condoms or non-condoms. But it’s not that simple.

“I’m dealing with the population that a good 70% of it makes their living with non-condoms,” Mitchell continued. “They’re looking at me to rely on the testing. Plus we need to look at the overall statistics which are very, very low, including Hepatitis, herpes, HPV, Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. We’re 1.8%. That is 11 1/2 % less than the general public. And the HIV is virtually non-existent. We’ve had 17 cases in hundreds of thousands of encounters. Whatever we’re doing at AIM, it’s all working here.”

Mitchell cautions the government: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Don’t push to much here. If you think a law or a legislation is going to stop these people from coming in and testing and just using condoms, we’ll be working underground again.”

Mitchell says if the AIM system were to break, “And people would go to different facilities, whatever, it would be useless. I couldn’t share and I couldn’t find anyone and their partners when they get chlamydia, gonorrhea or HIV.”

Noting that during the last outbreak where one male performer and three females came up HIV positive, Alana said while Mitchell was able to get things quarantined, the mainstream news just latched on to the story and ran with it. “I thought it was a disgusting joke- they pointed their fingers at us like we are dirty when we’re safer than the majority of the population.”

“That’s when the government became involved,” Mitchell points out. “I had government agencies with more acronyms than you can possibly imagine, sitting in there trying to tear apart- I had part of my records pulled from me by the County to try and duplicate my investigation which A, they didn’t need to do and, B, I always do an investigation to make sure that it doesn’t spread to the general population- which is borderline illegal. But they were bending the rules to get inside and find out about us. And they’re not quite done yet. We’ve got this issue with OSHA that’s coming up. That’s really something that can change the face of how we shoot.”

Alana imagined that with the re-election of Bush, the heat will continue. Chris suspected hard times for the industry over the next few years. “I do to,” Mitchell agreed. Chris also made a good point that if there was a genuine concern on the part of government it would have done something long before. “Porn has been around longer than all three of us.” Mitchell said government isn’t looking at the AIM system to apply it to where it could benefit other people. “They’re looking to destroy it, and use other systems as a way to censor pornography. And they’re using the problems to censor the industry. And we had really better take heed of that. Whether that’s being more responsible by using condoms, that’s up to each and every person. But I can say the Healthcare aspect is going to be a target by the government for some time to come. I have thrown myself on the blanket many times. I have been up to Sacramento. I’ve been to Washington D.C. I’ve been up to city hall. And I’ve been wedging myself in between and protecting the industry by giving them the statistics and sharing the protocols with them and showing what is being done.”

Mitchell said government don’t understand that what AIM is doing is a harm-reduction aspect. “We can’t force everyone to use condoms. They’ll go underground and shoot.” Mitchell also points out that it’s only been legal to shoot porn in California since 1988 and that people met in the parking lots of grocery stores and malls and caravaned up to the shooting location. Mitchell’s feeling is that a condom law would have the same effect. “Then it becomes the threat of whether we’re monitoring ourselves. Does it then spread to the general population?”

Mitchell also said that AIM uses sex workers as their foot soldiers to educate people about safe sex. “And it works very well.”

Alana thinks that the way the gay industry operates is crazy. “They should have a lot of the same rules in place.” Mitchell said the argument comes up all the time.

“These government meetings I was involved with- they’re saying what about the gay industry? They treat everyone like they’re all a risk. I said wait a second- how do we know. Do we know is their 80% HIV positive. Is their 10%? We don’t know because we don’t have stats. If hey were to test then we could at least address the STD’s. Besides, we all know what it’s like on a set. Condoms aren’t used even on an all-condom shoot. People don’t understand this and as professionals we know what’s going on.”

Mitchell also points out that all-condom companies don’t use condoms for oral sex. “And when the ejaculation part comes, they whip the condom off and come in somebody’s eye.”

Alana said there are a lot of gay companies who are shooting in Orange County. Mitchell said gay companies shoot all over the US, in fact. Alana said she came across a gay company that’s decided to shoot straight porn. When Alana started asking questions they told her that they don’t do HIV testing. “We use condoms only. Well, you’re not going to shoot with me, then. These people are trying to shoot heterosexual sex and they’re refusing to have their talent test. They absolutely refuse. I was very upset by this.”

Mitchell explained that the AIM system is becoming worldwide. “We’re facility friendly- all we need is a blood sample and we fax paperwork anywhere in the world. The necessary paperwork is taken from the patient and validated at the clinic or the doctor’s facility of choice. The blood sample is sent to us and two days later- it takes 48 hours- we can return the result quickly.”

Mitchell says AIM has 40 affiliates throughout the US. “We have facilities in Canada; we’ve got facilities in Hungary, South Africa, Australia, Japan, anywhere.”

According to Mitchell AIM does 240 tests by mail a month.

Alana was curious how information on Tianna Lynn got out there. Mitchell speculated that someone in her camp of people took it upon themselves to point the finger at her and put her personal information out there. “It certainly wasn’t us. And when people get wrong information they jump on the fucking Internet sites and spread horrible information. Before you know it somebody’s real name gets up there. A misquote from me gets up there somehow and then they bring other doctors who are quoted and it all gets to be mixed up. I think those sites are some of the worst stuff to happen.”

Mitchell said while people are testing more and more, “They’re using testing as an excuse. Remember tests are only as good as the day that they’re drawn. Don’t use this because we learned this from the last outbreak that someone can be in their most virulent phase of HIV and still have a current test.”

Mitchell also notes how the inherent risks in porn have grown exponentially. “This choking and gagging and two dicks in an ass and double anal cream pies, it seems to be the demand to see this can you top this sort of mentality is making it more and more unsafer regardless of how much testing.”

Chris noted that right before the last break out he did a 15 on one gangbang. “Wherein I was the second guy to pop out of five-way internal anal pop. I got real sick after that.” Chris said he was told that when you do an internal pop, there’s a vacuum effect created. “It sucks things back up in your urethra. Hey, I had no friggin’ idea.” Alana said he was tested for all kinds of STD’s.

“There’s a lot of things out there,” Chris continued. “You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re going to continue to have unprotected sex and get nothing.”

Mitchell notes that Lynn, by the same token, was trying to do the responsible thing.

“Some people pointed some serious fingers at her,” added Alana who thinks that Lynn is owed an apology. “I love her to death. She is the sweetest girl.” Alana said she’d hate to see someone with all that potential have the rug pulled out from underneath them. Chris said another thing you have to get over is the fact that you’re going to get sick working in the business, that it’s an inevitability and to act responsibly when the situation arises.