YNOT – A noted communicable diseases expert has called the Los Angeles County Public Health Department’s analysis of sexually transmitted infection rates within the adult entertainment industry “poorly documented” and “without basis in fact.” The allegedly flawed data analysis forms much of the basis for the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s consideration of new regulations governing the use of barrier protection on adult film sets.

Lawrence S. Mayer MD, MS, PhD, examined LACPHD’s conclusions and declared them faulty on a number of levels. Mayer is a professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine, a professor of biostatistics at Arizona State Univerity, and a professor of epidemiology at the University of Arizona. Since 1998, he has served as a detective for the Maricopa County, Ariz., district attorney’s office.

In a formal report about the LACPHD’s statistics, Mayer analyzed data presented by LACPHD officials Robert Kim-Farley MD, MPH (who also serves as a professor-in-residence at UCLA) and Peter Kerndt MD, MPH. The data offered estimated prevalence of gonorrhea, chlamydia and other STIs in LA County’s adult performer population and compared those figures to statistics for infection in the general population.

Kim-Farley’s and Kerndt’s findings suggested rates of STIs for performers may be eight to 60 times the rates seen in other LA County population groups.

Mayer’s report, however, concludes the data presented by Kim-Farley and Kerndt is “fundamentally flawed” because the methodology the doctors used to arrive calculate estimated infection rates is inappropriate. Mayer’s report points out by Kim-Farley’s and Kerndt’s presentations contradict each other. In addition, the data upon which Kim-Farley’s and Kerndt’s reports were based contradict data contained in other LACPHD reports about STIs.

According to Mayer, since the vast majority of people in LACDPH’s comparison groups are not tested within any given year for any STIs and may not be sexually active enough to risk infection, a much better comparison group would comprise people who are more similar to adult performers in both frequency of testing and sexual activity levels. In Mayer’s view, the most likely appropriate comparison group would be sexually active young people in LA County. Based upon his observations, Mayer proposed the rate of STI infection among that group could be as much as 10 times higher than the groups Kerndt and Kim-Farley used in their analyses, making the adult industry infection rate and the control group infection rate very similar.

Mayer’s report also states:

• Kim-Farley and Kerndt did not reveal the methodology employed to derive the estimates they used in their calculations, and the doctors provided little or no citation for their data.
• Based on anecdotal evidence from undefined “industry sources,” Kerndt suggests there are 1,200 adult performers in LA County, while Kim-Farley places the number at 2,000-3,000.
• Kim-Farley’s purported chlamydia rate of 1.8 percent for LA County as a whole stands in sharp contrast to other rates reported by his own agency, such as the 11.3-percent rate published in LACDPHD’s 2008 STD Clinic Morbidity Report.
• Kerndt’s and Kim-Farley’s reports take into account neither re-infection rates nor performer re-testing.
• Kim-Farley’s method of estimating infection rates diverges sharply from that recommended by the CDC.
• The data used by Kerndt and Kim-Farley, based upon similarly-aged subgroups and all ages, do not take into account that many LA County residents are not tested each year for STIs.

“Early in the [potential regulation] process, Cal/OSHA’s Standards Board emphasized the need for an epidemiological analysis of the data surrounding the adult film industry and sexually transmitted infections,” said Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Diane Duke. “To date, Cal/OSHA has had to rely on the inaccurate findings provided by LA County. Now we have information the standards board requested, using the same scientific methodology that the Center for Disease Control utilizes.”

FSC commissioned Mayer’s report, and Duke plans to present the epidemiologist’s findings during the Cal/OSHA Advisory Subcommittee meeting scheduled to take place Tuesday at the CalTrans Bldg. in downtown Los Angeles. The subcommittee hopes to generate recommendations about workplace health and safety regulations for adult industry productions, which it will present to the Cal/OSHA Standards Board. FSC has been working with Cal/OSHA officials, regulatory compliance experts and adult industry stakeholders to develop industry-appropriate standards in order to protect the wellbeing of the adult industry and its performers.

“It’s time to put political agendas aside and to tell the truth about the adult entertainment industry,” Duke said. “Our performers are valued, protected and safe.”

Last week LACPHD Director Dr. Jonathan Fielding proposed Kerndt lead a reorganization of the county’s STI program. Fielding told the Los Angeles Times he hopes to improve the program’s efficiency and effectiveness.