…but the one thing you don’t do is mess with the blood supply:
A government health committee Friday recommended not changing the ban on gay men donating blood but also called for new research on alternative policies, citing flaws in the current rules.
Gay men have been prohibited from giving blood since 1985. But momentum to change the ban has grown recently, with advocacy groups, blood-collection organizations and members of Congress calling for the Food and Drug Administration to revise the donation rules.
The safety of the US blood supply is of paramount importance, once that is lost or confidence in it is lost all bets are off.
The American Plasma Users Coalition, representing people who depend on the blood supply to maintain health, urged additional research, forecasting that revisions in the donation rules eventually will be made.
But the coalition’s Mark Skinner also said, “It’s not about blood supply; it’s about blood safety … Ultimately the end-user bears 100 percent of the risk.’’
He said, “The fact that it’s discriminatory does not mean it’s wrong if it’s in the interest of public health.’’
Added Corey Dubin, a hemophiliac infected with HIV from a tainted blood product: “This is daily question of survival.’’
Forgetting the risk to lives for a moment if you want to increase litigation and cost to a healthcare system this is the way to do it.
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So blood is gay now? Seriously! How bleepity bleep stupid are these people?
People would actually perfer to die than to get a transplant from a homosexual person? People used to put animal parts and that was ok. But something from a gay person?
That doesn’t magically turn you gay. And even if it did…I’d rather be alive and have gay blood than be dead.
You are totally misreading this. It’s isn’t a question of homosexuality it’s a question of the spread of AIDS and HIV.
To pretend it isn’t a risk to the blood supply is a denial of reality, and countries like Canada that have the same rules understand this.
We’re not living in the 1980s anymore. Science has come far enough in the last 20 years to tell us that HIV & AIDS is not only spread through homosexual sexual contact. Heterosexual contact spreads it too. Along with blood and other bodily fluids.
Just as there are millions of disease free homosexuals, there are millions of disease free heterosexuals too.
The only safety issue is that of the proper testing of the donated blood. Are the blood scientists doing their jobs to be sure that any blood taken in isn’t contaminated.
What if you don’t ‘discover’ you are gay until after you give blood. Is the blood you donated less safe?
If the panels that actually take care of this stuff think the safety issue is still there then it has to be respected.
The issue has to be decided based on the safety of the health supply not only anyone’s self esteem issues.
DaHospitalityGuy:
The issue is that men who have had sex with men are forty-four times as likely as straights to have HIV/AIDS.
Whatever the false negative rate for HIV testing is, you have to multiply that by 44 to understand the danger in allowing gays to give blood.
Anyone who has given blood knows that the Red Cross errs on the side of caution. If you’ve lived in England for too long, you don’t get to give blood; you might have mad cow. This applies even if you are a vegetarian. Travel too much? No blood donation. Heart issues within the past year? No blood. Pre-cancerous tumours? No donating for three years.
Gay men need to get a grip – and grow up. It’s not all about you, and, if anything is about the well-being of other people, giving blood would be it.