"They'll run for the hills," Mitchell said. "This is a population, you tell them to do something, and they won't do anything.
"We're not in the real world, we're in the world of porn."
Mitchell, a former adult-film star who helped launch nationwide regular testing in the porn industry for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases after an HIV outbreak in 1998, also questioned the political will to enforce tougher regulations.
"People want their potholes filled. Who's going to pay for inspectors to sit around and watch people put on a condom?"
In the past decade, 17 adult-entertainment performers have tested positive for HIV, including two male performers who infected a total of nine women. Testing caught six others before the virus could be passed on, she said.
Tavrow — who hosted a UCLA round table last fall on the issue with academics, lawyers, legislators' representatives, and porn producers and performers — said a state law is overdue.
"Everyone knows from a health (perspective) this is a slam dunk, but there is just so much sensitivity," Tavrow said. "Few legislative offices see a large grass-roots constituency for it. Senators and Assembly members say, 'What's in it for me? Will this win me votes?' A lot of people are worried to be painted with the porn brush, as it were. They don't want to come out as 'Mr. Porn.'"
Senator Sheila Kuehl who chairs the Senate's Health Committee, said the subject is an important workplace issue.
But she said there has been little support for tougher legislation because health officials have been unwilling or unable to do the work required, HIV activists haven't rallied behind it and hundreds of other measures compete for lawmakers' attention.
Under current state code, employers face civil penalties for failing to protect employees from possible exposure to blood-borne pathogens.
But Len Welsh, acting chief of the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said his agency has difficulty enforcing the regulation in the porn industry because most performers are not full-time studio employees.
"We've had round-table discussions how to get at it and no one seems to have a good answer," Welsh said. "It's one of those things like immigration: Everyone agrees it's a problem, but no one has a solution."
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