Miami - from www.miamiherald.com - The adult films, made in Miami-Dade County, have names like South Beach Cruisin', and Barely Legal: Miami Girls. In them, one actor wears nothing but roller skates. Others wear nothing at all.
And that's the problem, according to a Los Angeles-based AIDS advocacy group that filed a complaint with the Miami-Dade County Health Department. The actors aren't wearing condoms and could be spreading diseases including HIV.
The complaint, filed under the state's sanitary nuisance law -- Florida Statute 386 -- banning any act that might spread disease, was filed in January against adult filmmakers Bang Brothers Films, Josh Stone Productions and Reality Kings Productions, all of Miami, and Hustler Video, of Beverly Hills. This week the health department announced it will investigate the allegations.
The object is not to shut down the adult films, only to get the male actors to wear condoms, said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, an international advocacy group that provides information, medications and treatment.
``They set a bad example. A lot of young people get their sex education from porn. They find daddy's DVD or go online,'' he said.
The filmmakers are unlikely to agree voluntarily.
``What kind of adult film would you have left?'' asked Larry Walters [pictured], Altamonte Springs-based lawyer for Bang Brothers. ``Nothing that would sell.''
Reality Kings declined to comment. Hustler Video and Josh Stone could not be reached.
Walters called the health department investigation ``a tempest in a teapot.''
``It will ultimately be shown that Bang Brothers is not in violation of any health regulation,'' he said. ``For the government to impose such restrictions presents significant free-speech issues.''
Bang Brothers actors are regularly tested for STDs and HIV, and are permitted to wear condoms in films if they want, Walters said.
``The use of condoms is not the policy of Bang Brothers or the vast majority of adult industry producers,'' he said.
In Los Angeles, county health officials have reported 22 HIV infections in adult industry performers since 2004, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Prosecuting the filmmakers under Florida's sanitary nuisance law won't be easy, admitted Mort Laitner, chief legal counsel for the Miami-Dade Health Department.
``You have to show the conduct spreading sexual diseases,'' he said.
It's not enough to show a filmed sex act in which a condom is not used, he said. The prosecution must prove it was the act shown in the film -- not some prior or subsequent act -- that transmitted the disease.
``We really need victims to testify,'' he said.
But finding them is another problem, Laitner said. He can contact the health department's HIV and STD offices seeking names of people who have been infected, he said, but getting permission to contact them might run afoul of medical privacy laws.
Walters said the adult movie business has been moving from California to Florida, particularly South Florida, for several years. Production costs are less and unions are fewer, he said. And South Florida's cosmopolitan population provides ``a wide variety of nationalities and a lot of unique-looking people.'' And, he added, California producers are being pursued by the same AIDS advocacy group that filed the complaint in Miami-Dade. The AIDS group says it filed the South Florida complaint in part because California producers said they were relocating.
