The list was handed voluntarily to investigators from the Health Department, despite rumors from some online adult sites that the government agencies would subpoena records.
"The legal names of our talent have always been held in the strictest confidentiality and privacy,” Sharon Mitchell, the director of the clinic, told The New York Times late Wednesday. “We've been persuaded to cooperate."
The Health Department said the list of legal names, as opposed to stage names, would allow the agency to make it easier to track down anyone outside the industry with whom they might have had sex with Darren James and Laura Roxx, who both were identified as having the virus which causes AIDS.
Mitchell and adult industry leaders plan a news conference Thursday afternoon to explain the nonprofit’s position on the possibility that their industry could be subject to far greater scrutiny than before.
Los Angeles County officials told XBiz that they have asked the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate cases of potential exposure to HIV.
But Cal/OSHA spokeswoman Susan Gard told XBiz the agency would be limited in its scope.
“It is going to take time to investigate the two cases of infection,” she said. “Typically, the cases take about six months to investigate.”
And Gard said that the state agency does not probe cases of potential exposure to HIV unless the workers in question were employed by an adult production company. Most adult actors are independent contractors, and do not come under the agency's jurisdiction.
Actors or production staff who are willing to file a claim relative to unhealthful productions, anonymous or otherwise, can call Cal/OSHA at 1 (800) 963-9424.
