CALIFORNIA: AIDS Healthcare Foundation Subpoenas Health Centers For Medical Records Of Porn Performers

Several days ago a trade organization for the porn industry sent out an alert about the ever-combative AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is most famous for its deep-pocketed advertising campaigns against the use of Truvada as an HIV preventive. From the Free Speech Coalition:

Earlier this week, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) served several testing centers with subpoenas, asking them to turn over confidential patient privacy data as part of their lawsuit on Measure B. This is a clear HIPPA violation, and an affront to performer dignity. As a healthcare provider schooled in patient privacy, AHF should be ashamed. AHF is hoping that by combing through patients’ private medical records, they can find something that would serve their political campaign. For all its high-minded rhetoric about protecting performers, AHF has never cared much for performer privacy. In campaign after campaign after campaign, AHF has proposed regulations that would expose performer’s personal data to hackers, to stalkers, to the government and to AHF itself. It’s just one reason that performers have been so vocal in their opposition to AHF and Michael Weinstein. Performers are not a public health threat. Performers are not a means to a political end. Performers are men and women who may work in non-traditional positions, but have the same right to privacy as anyone, including Michael Weinstein. These subpoenas are unconscionable, indecent and offensive. Performers deserve better than to have would be ‘porn czar’ Michael Weinstein peaking through their blinds and snooping through their private medical records. We call on Michael Weinstein to call off this noxious campaign, and for the board of AIDS Healthcare Foundation to #RemoveWeinstein.

Measure B is the 2012 AHF-backed referendum which mandates the use of condom in all porn productions in Los Angeles County. Early this year the AHF launched a campaign to put the issue to a statewide ballot.