Press Release

MOVIE GALLERY EMPLOYEES AT RISK FOR HIV, HEPATITIS B

E-mail this page to a friend

Contact: Randy Sharp
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION
Dr. Donald E. Wildmon, President
P.O. Drawer 2440
Tupelo, Mississippi 38803
Phone 662/844-5036
Fax 662/842-7798
URL: http://www.afa.net

For immediate release: November 5, 2001

TUPELO, MS - Employees of Movie Gallery, the nation’s leading hard-core sex video rental chain, are prime candidates for contracting sexually transmitted diseases according to Randy Sharp, director of special projects for American Family Association (AFA).

Sharp said, “Employees should be very concerned for their health because of the sexual activity that occurs in the store’s back rooms where men are allowed to freely view explicit pornographic pictures on hundreds of video covers.”

The Mississippi Department of Health agrees. Mary Currier, State Epidemiologist, said the problem in video stores “is something we have had to confront before,” because men leave behind body fluids that can transmit HIV and other blood borne pathogens.

Molli Conti, associate director for the national Hepatitis B Foundation, says employees who are required to “clean up” after customers or handle contaminated tapes are “clearly at risk for Hepatitis B, even if they have a paper cut because it is 100 times more infectious than the AIDS virus and can live outside the body for up to seven days.”

But in-store activities are not the only concern. When rented movies are returned, the possibility exists for the tapes and tape cases to be contaminated since they are often handled shortly after people have sex. “Movie Gallery should immediately implement health standards as prescribed by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration),” Sharp said, “This includes ‘Universal Precautions’ training, Hepatitis B vaccinations for all employees, and contamination control stations.”

Movie Gallery rents hard-core sex videos in nearly 300 stores nationwide.

###