US porn actors must wear condoms—court

LOS ANGELES – Hollywood porn film actors must wear condoms on set, a federal appeal court said Monday, throwing out their claims that it breaches US First Amendment rights.

The ruling upholding a Los Angeles County law, which was approved by a referendum in November 2012 as so-called Measure B, requires adult film producers to obtain a public health permit, follow all health and safety laws including condom use, and pay a permit fee.

Porn film companies claimed their industry already regulates itself sufficiently to protect actors against AIDS/HIV and other diseases. It also violates the First Amendment right to free expression, they said.

But that argument was rejected by a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a decision taken in August last year.

Measure B “was narrowly tailored to achieve the substantial governmental interest of reducing the rate of sexually transmitted infections, and left open adequate alternative means of expression,” they said.

Porn film makers in California were forced to suspend production temporarily in 2011 after an actor tested positive for HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, in the latest such disruption to the multi-billion-dollar industry.

The industry is primarily based in the San Fernando Valley north of LA.

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Study links HIV infection to heart attack risk

WASHINGTON—Being HIV-positive raises a person’s heart attack risk by about 50 percent, said a study released Monday that confirms earlier findings.

The study looked at 82,459 US veterans, the vast majority of them men. It was published in Archives of Internal Medicine, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It said that in three age groups, the average incidence of heart attack was consistently and significantly higher for people who are HIV-positive, compared to uninfected veterans.


After adjusting for illness, smoking, alcohol consumption and risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, the HIV-positive subjects in the study had a 50 percent higher risk of heart attack than uninfected people.

The research was led by Matthew Freiberg of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Several studies have shown that chronic activation of the immune system because of HIV infection prior to antiretroviral therapy seems to cause inflammation that apparently speeds up the aging process and leaves a person more vulnerable to illnesses associated with growing older.

A study published in July by the JAMA showed that people who are HIV-positive have twice the risk of heart attack or stroke compared to uninfected people. The authors of that study linked this increased risk to inflammation of the arteries.

source: business.inquirer.net