U.S. porn industry HIV cases prompt investigation

California health officials are investigating the Los Angeles clinic where a pornographic film actress recently tested positive for HIV, saying it has failed to alert local authorities to cases of sexually transmitted disease in the adult film industry.

Investigators from the state's Division of Occupational Safety and Health on Wednesday conducted a surprise inspection of the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation in suburban Los Angeles as part of the investigation.

The clinic tests performers in the $12 billion-a-year U.S. adult film industry, which is largely centered in the San Fernando Valley suburbs of Los Angeles, and issues work certificates for those who come up clean.

"We are investigating the clinic," Cal-Osha spokeswoman Erika Monterroza told Reuters.

"All talent goes through them for monthly testing and it seems like this clinic had received positive results for HIV as well as other sexually transmitted diseases and didn't report them to the county health department," Monterroza said.

The inspection comes a week after Los Angeles health authorities disclosed that there had been 16 unpublicized cases of HIV among porn performers since 2004.

Officials also expressed dismay that the unnamed actress who was found to be positive for HIV on June 4 was allowed to work the following day before taking second and third tests.

Monterroza said the AIM clinic had refused to tell county and state health authorities the name of the production company that filmed the actress after she had tested positive.

If AIM Healthcare was found to be in violation of state health laws, she said, Cal-Osha could issue an order shutting down the clinic.

Health officials now say 22 porn performers have tested positive for HIV, including five during a 2004 outbreak that prompted tougher testing and reporting rules.

Since then 1,357 porn performers have tested positive for gonorrhea and 15 for syphilis, according to county health data cited by the Los Angeles Times.

The porn industry includes about 1,200 actors employed by 200 production companies.

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Madonna's adopted daughter said to leave Malawi

Madonna's new daughter has flown out of her native Malawi on a private jet headed for London, an airport employee and a person familiar with Madonna's adoption proceedings in this southern African country said Saturday.

The airport employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said 3-year-old Chifundo "Mercy" James left late Friday headed to London, with a stop in neighboring South Africa. The girl, the second child Madonna has adopted from Malawi, was reportedly accompanied on the flight by a nanny, a child nurse and a third aide.

The person familiar with the adoption, who also was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the girl known as Mercy should have reached London on Saturday morning. Madonna has homes in England and in the United States.

Malawi's highest court had granted the adoption June 12, overturning an April lower court ruling that Madonna had not spent enough time in Malawi to be given a child.

The high court said the first judge had imposed too narrow a definition of residency, and lauded Madonna for her work with children in a poor country where half a million have lost a parent to AIDS.

Madonna's Raising Malawi, a charity founded in 2006, helps feed, educate and provide medical care for some of Malawi's orphans.

Madonna adopted a son, David, from Malawi last year.

Children's welfare groups had expressed concern that rules meant to protect children were being bent because of Madonna's celebrity, and perhaps out of gratitude for what she has done for Malawi.

Madonna met Mercy in 2006 at Kondanani Children's Village, an orphanage in Bvumbwe, just south of Blantyre. It was the same year she began the process of adopting David, whom she found at another orphanage in central Malawi.

The girl's 18-year-old mother was unmarried and died soon after she gave birth. Since Madonna moved to adopt the girl, a dispute has arisen between the girl's maternal relatives, who agreed to the adoption, and a man who says he is the father and wants to care for the girl himself, but acknowledged he had never seen Mercy.

Madonna first traveled to Malawi in 2006 while filming a documentary on its devastating poverty and AIDS crisis.

In addition to David, the 50-year-old Madonna has two other children: Lourdes, 12, and Rocco, 8.

Reports that Madonna would in the next few days visit her charity's projects in Malawi could not be confirmed.

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