This video is the footage from the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) Panel “HIV Stigma and Prevention in the Adult Industry” Friday January 24, 2019 at the AVN Expo, Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada. The Panelists from Left to Right include Bella Bathory, David Holland, Charlotte Satre, and Matthew Rose. The Panel Moderator is Bettie Crocker and Eric Paul Leue speaks on behalf of Free Speech Coalition. The videographer received permission to film prior to the start of the panel. This page will be updated with a transcript of important moments with matching time codes.
UPDATE-I’ve decided to add portions of the transcription as I write it- APAG President Alana Evans
0:01:38 – Matthew Rose- states that the work he does ” hails in comparison to the reach you all can have. You all set standards, norms, and teach people things more than you ever know and if I can get even a couple of you to come fly the flag and help me out I will be winning” “We take comments in the form of cash app”
0:02:52-David Holland- ” it pretty much takes some sort of insertive sexual activity to actually transmit it so um indescernable word so receptive partners are at greater risk than insertive partners however insertive partners are at risk, just lower risk, um and it can be transmitted through things like oral sex although that is extremely rare, its like really rare like case reported be like so rare the cdc can’t even calculate what the risk actually is kinda rare, but it’s been reported. But the you know the major place it gets transmitted are you know penis and vagina sex and penis and butt sex.”
0:04:12- David Holland begins the Prep pitch
at 0:04:35 states that 7 people in the world had Prep fail when they used it ( means 7 cases of HIV contraction while using prep)
at 0:04:47 states that it is recommended to take once a day. Then he states ” There are regiments
that some groups advocate where you only have to take it (Prep) around the time you have sex so that’s a thing”
at 0:05:00 he states that it’s incredibly safe with very few side effects.
0:08:22 converstaion starts again during FSC technical difficulty- explantion of what Prep is
0:08:37- Bella Bathory- starts talking about prep “studies” that it’s incredibly effective- “there’s been a bunch of studies on intermitent Prep use and I think the last one was in France, right?”
0:08:48- David Holland replies- “there’s been one study” – Bella then states she’s seen three, and he replies that there and been only “one big one” so she then corrects herself. The states the study was only done on MEN. Because it takes longer to work with women (prep) the studies have only been on Men. She then talks about “Men can only take Prep the day before, the day of, and two days after”
The panel then goes through a voting poll with the audience.
at 0:12:32 the poll question is ” The CDC described the risk of tranmission for a person living with HIV with an undetecable viral load as which of the following?”
David Holland replies- effectively zero ” As in it’s never happened”
0:13:58 Bella Bathory begins to explain U=U – Undetectable is Untransmittable. She then states “Undetectable by normal standards, I believe, is less than 20 copies per micro litre?”
0:14:10- David Holland corrects her incorrect statment- “The actual definition is like less than 200, but our tests get it down to like 10 or 5.”
0:14:23 Bella Bathory replies ” and I know that like the the PASS testing it’s like I think it picks up like 5 or under. It’s um the the undetectable status is like much, the bar’s much higher in the PASS testing system.
0:14:40 Moderator Betty Crocker corrects Bella’s statement- ” So the PASS testing system it uses a different kind. It doesnt measure viral load. It looks for um actual HIV RNA in the system and it’s the same test that’s used on infants who are born to HIV positive mothers.”
0:14:51- David Holland now steps in to correct Betty and states, ” It’s a Viral load, thats the RNA test.”
0:15:20 David Holland begins to explain the PASS system to the crowd and how it works.
at 0:16:28 David Holland says ” Ordinarily if you just go to the doctor, you’re gonna get the standard fourth generation HIV test which is what the CDC reccomends, and you know that’s a pretty good test. In the past we only used to test for antibodies and so everybody that was infected would test positive for the antibody test , but the problem is that it takes weeks to months to develop an antibody response so that’s not a real good test if you wanna know like is somebody recently infected. The fourth generation antigen antibody test that we use in the genral public now are much better. That cuts what we call the window period between the time that you get infected and the time that your test turns positive to a couple of weeks. But the viral load actually has an even shorter window period so it will turn positive even faster but more importantly it’s also a direct test of somebodies ability to transmit HIV, so if they’re undetectable on that test, they can’t transmit. Period. ” ended at 0:17:43
0:17:44 David Holland- ” We looked at this this question about like well what if somebody you know, got infect the day before they went test, like how many people would break through and actually, you know, be infectious, in the two week period before they would be required to get another test to to stay clear n the Pass system, and in our model we actually looked at, um, we looked at gay men because, uh, and we looked at,um, at at anal sex ’cause that’s the highest risk and all the tops were HIV positive and all the bottoms were HIV negative, like we really made this hard, so (he laughs) all the bottoms were HIV negative and um, and everybody, and uh nobody pulled out, um so, um, you know really kinda like worst case scenario, but, and even under those circumstances, um, and of course nobody got on treatment during this time, um even under those circumstances, we had, I don’t know, it was like 1 or 2 out of a 100,000 or something like that, I don’t know. It was something ridiculously low.um, and it was under some extraordinarily complex, um, circumstances that that kind of thing would happen. um, and then so obviously thing, things that are less risky that just wouldn’t happen. and I should mention that, I shoulda mentioned this before, about bodily fluid exchange, it has never to my knowledge ever, ever ,ever, been transmitted by a face splash, getting it in your eye, getting it in a cut, you know those are all these things, that um, came out of like early days of HIV, it’s just, thats just never ever transpired, so faqcial cumshots, things like that just not a risk. Even if you have a blood filled syringe, and stab yourself with it, that’s one in 300. so, it’s hard.” (ends at 0:20:15)
0:20:20- Betty Crocker speaks- ” So this next one is for Matthew Rose, and can we talk a little bit about stigma, particularly when we’ve come along way in the treatment of HIV, and our knowledge about HIV, and we started talking about U equals U, can you talk about how that affects stigma and how that can affect incorporating HIV positive performers in the the industry?”
0:20:44- Matthew begins his reply and attempts to work the crowd. H etalks about the partner study, and that it focuses on gay men, because gay men engage in anal sex. “People tell me risky, but I don’t know what that really means.” States that there have been zero cases of undetectable transmission. It would take thousands of lifetimes to find a single transmission. Says, the breakthrough of undetectable was 2011 ( the year the industry changed our testing to the test we currently use which doesn’t show undetectable status) ” The most pwerful thing we can do is to encourage people to stay in care, take their daily pill, and life their life.” (ends at 0:24:21)
0:24:22- Performer Sasha Koch ” You’re talking about there was a study 7-8 years ago, so why are people still suffering and dying from HIV?
0:24:28 Matthew Rose replies- ” So stigma is a big reason. I do a lot of work in the south. People dont talk about sex in the south. It’s impolite to ask people about their sex lives in the south. All of you were born through magical conception, if you didn’t know.” ” For some reason we can’t talk about it. I had a young black gay man, 21 years of age, every two years, he was completely, he took his pills, he lived a great life. For three months out of the year, he stopped taking his pills, risked his health, why? Because he went home for winter break and he didn’t want his family to know that he was taking medication for HIV. I know people who hide their pills in bottles, people who can’t get access to care, people who the system doesn’t let them stay in care.”
0:26:03 A question is asked about treament costs and coverage, along with lack of insurance concerns.
0:26:14 Matthew replys with an explantion of programs that provide services, that medicade offers services, and that it’s illegal to not cover HIV medication.
0:27:12 performer asks if there are allergies to the medication. Matthew replies that there can be, and he passes the question over to David Holland
0:27:39- David Holland replies- ” That’s a complicated question but, the bottom line the two things I’d say really quick modern contemporary antiretroviral therapy for most people is like water, I mean it’s really very very safe. It used to be kinda but now it’s very very safe. That said, ya know, with any medication in the world there’s gonna be a handful of people that have a bad reaction to it, but modern antiretroviral therapy is extremely safe, extremely well tolerated, forgiving.”
0:28:14 a questions is asked- what is the percentage, if you take birth control it’s like 99.99 percent, but there’s that little percent that you can get pregnant, what is the percentage if I was to take the pill?
0:28:25- Matthew Rose replies-“So For PREP, you need, this is where it’s gets the tricky part. Remember where they were telling you it could change a little bit? So for anal sex, you need to have at least, and some of you are looking at me OH MATT YOU’RE LETTING THE GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE, at least 4 days worth of medication is 90 percent protection. If you have 7 days, you get yourself to 99. For vaginal sex, You need at least 21 to 28 days, depending on who’s study you believe, just because it takes longer to get into the vaginal tissue.” ( ends at 0:29:16)
0:29:18- David Holland replies- ” It’s probably more effective at early does, but that’s like the parting line on it. But the thing is, here’s the thing about Prep, is that, um, if you take it, and you take it at least, you know, 4 or 5 days out of the week, um, it is as close to 100% effective as we can get. Now nothing is 100%. Literally nothing in medicine is 100% but it’s really damn good. Um, you know there have been a few break throughs from people that got infected randomly by somebody who’s had a circulating virus that was resistant to the virus. There had been a couple that just completely unexplained, but the vast vast vast majority of transmission hits that occured in people that are taking Prep were in people who had stopped taking the pill (Prep).” (he ends at 0:30:20)
Transcription still in process…
