(From adultbeat, reprinted from adultfyi, from ABC News)

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop on ABC news calls for Congressional reform of the adult industry.

Koop rails against certain adult industry sex practices with the ABC report noting that "[adult industry] producers hire, men and women as young as 18, for sex that is often unprotected."

"We have an industry that is making billions of dollars a year, is spreading to cable television and to the Internet, and yet their employees are considered to be throwaway people," Koop told ABC.

The report goes on to say that "only a handful of 'high end' production companies require condoms, leaving the majority of performers vulnerable to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. While some companies require performers to take HIV tests, there is no government regulation mandating tests across the industry.

Koop — noting that performers' sexual activity off the set, with spouses or lovers, can spread disease beyond the industry — says America's big corporations which profit from porn via hotel and cable revenues are also complicit in a public health hazard: They want the profits from pornography but "they don't want to get involved."

Nor do the fans, according to Koop. "Even the people who enjoy looking at pornography really despise the people they're watching, and they have no sense of protection for them," he said.

According to the ABC report, few of the adult companies provide health insurance, and most performers find they must work without condoms if they want to keep getting jobs. "The fans don't like to see condoms," said performer Belladonna, reflecting a belief that is widely held in the industry. Like many other performers, Belladonna started in the business when she was 18, the legal minimum.

According to Koop, many producers and distributors argue that performers are independent contractors, not their employees, so they don't have any responsibility for them. But Koop calls that a "copout."

"These youngsters are not unionized, they don't know how to do anything for themselves, and they're really stuck," he said.

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Gosh, I hate to say 'I told ya so', but 'I told ya so'.

Does everyone still think I'm an asshole for suggesting 'Day of Shoot Testing and Results' (DOSTAR)?

Go Mr. Koop, go.

He doesn't want to shut you folks down, he justs wants to keep you people from hurting the high school kids.

I would agree with him.

Isn't it time you people start listening to The Outsider?

The Outsider