Possible HIV outbreak in UK adult industry

I read something about the certifications last night.

The certs are often done at standard NHS clinics (the test is free, but a certificate costs). The cert is considered valid for a month from time of test (i.e. 4 weeks) but the cert itself takes maybe a week to arrive, so is valid for 3 weeks from time of arrival, so testing is typically done every 3 weeks to ensure a valid cert is held. This is a full STD test as well as HIV.

So I guess if people have just been tested, or get re-tested now, then test again in 3 weeks, and again 3 weeks later, if all those tests are clear, you can pretty much say they are clean and can safely work. That's a 6 week shutdown, so long as they have those 3 clear certs to show.

(12-04-2012 09:59 )chris535i Wrote:  

(11-04-2012 21:05 )mrmann Wrote:  They will then have unprotected sex with the other actor/actress, and give it to them as well.

No, HIV is nowhere near as contagious as you think. It's not passed on very often during 'normal' sex.

While it's true that HIV infection via 'normal' sex, and even via anal sex, is not as common as people may think, it is nevertheless a very real and serious risk, and should not be so easily dismissed, especially for those who work within the sex industry.

An interesting link was provided on the bgafd forums to the US Centre for Disease Control statistics for HIV infection :

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml...1.htm#tab1

As with all statistics, you need to look beyond the figures to see where and when the sample was taken from etc to get a clearer understanding before drawing conclusions.
For example, the infection rates from oral sex are very small, and those figures only cover male/female oral sex. This may suggest that infection from girl/girl is negligable, but there are cases where women have contracted HIV having only had girl/girl sex and no other risk factors.
Simple conclusion, however small the risk, if it was your life potentially at risk, would you chance it?