Homosexuals Can Now Give Blood

Remove all ads!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14824310

About ****ing time.

 

I agree, and I never really saw the point to being with. A straight guy who slept is probably a bigger risk than a gay guy in a long-term relationship. AIDS stopped being a "gay disease" a long time ago. Besides, if you were a gay man, and you went to give blood, you could just lie on the questionaire. It's not like they were going to check up on you.

 

You of course are right...
But considering the fact that in the stone age in medical terms, being gay was also considered an illness... yep, few decades ago, stone age.

 

That's fabulous news!

 

The ban wasn't *just* on homosexuals. It was a ban based on... certain bedroom acts.

 

IMHO, any criteria they have should be based on scientrifically determined facts or trends. They should be as stringent as possible regardless of if the person is straight, gay, bi, omni, a, confused, retarded, or whatever. The primary goal should be the safety of the recipients, not the feelings or rights of the donors.

 

I agree. This is being hailed as a great victory for gaydom. I just hope the rate of infection doesn't increase as that would be so unfortunate and cruel to the innocent victims.

 

Snook? Why would it?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

The criteria was originally brought in due to the rate of failed samples MANY years ago in particular demographics and trends. The costs attributed with safe disposal and notification to the donor outweighed the benefit.

Since then education has been a LOT more inclusive and widespread and research even showing that people take more precaution in 'high risk acts' - the down side that people who stick to 'low risk' activities don't take the same precautions generally.

All blood is screened and tested before being given to a donor. Risks should be lowered - as many people have pointed out via facebook and news outlet comments - people simply LIED when giving blood before to avoid stigma.

 

Well there are three possibilities. The rate will go down, up, or stay exactly the same. If it goes up the natural conclusion will be that an additional population was added into the mix. I'm not quite sure that the same can be said for the other two possibilities, for if it goes down the "testing" process will probably get the credit.

 

It's not really lifting the ban. It's moving it from a lifetime ban to not in the last 12 months. Active homosexuals are still not accepted as donors along with other high risk groups. According to the article the change was based on the current medical advice.

 

Testing blood for HIV is, within the first 6 months after infection, too unreliable and expensive and homosexual people still have a higher risk of carrying HIV*. Also, protected anal sex is still risky since the infections rate of anal sex is simply higher (friction causes small wounds in the rectum wall) and condoms only reduce the risk of HIV infection but do not eliminate it.
Also, just saying that we shouldn't be so indignant about homosexuals being excluded since a) giving blood isn't a fundamental human right and b) it's about the welfare of the receiver.

*

(source)

 

The number of heterosexual people diagnosed with HIV/Aids via transmission route is greater than the number of number of homosexuals via the same. I think gay men are perhaps proportionally at a greater risk, but the fact remains that more straight men carry the disease than gay men.

I understand where you're coming from - is having a discriminatory policy necessarily wrong if it helps protect public health? Arguably not. I would, however, still maintain that a blanket ban is unnecessarily cautious/restrictive - a remnant of the 80s when HIV/AIDS was viewed as being an exclusively "gay disease". We have known for a long time that that isn't the case but no one, until now, seemed to think it wise to revise the law. How many people in need of blood transfusions died because 'gay blood' wasn't good enough?

 

Many heterosexual people that have a higher chance of HIV, (drug abuse, coming from sub Saharan Africa, or ever had a sexual relation with someone sub Saharan Africa) are also warded off. Homosexual people do not need any of those 'heterosexual' reasons for being high-risk, they just need to have a homosexual sex life.

I'm not arguing that it is unwise to lift this ban, since it is based on medical research, and I'm not insane enough to argue with empirical evidence. It seems to me that it is taken up as a gay-right issue, which it isn't. Homosexuals with an active homosexual sex life simply have a higher chance of carrying a dangerous disease.

 

Not only that, but in 1980 when that law was placed on the books, AIDS was much more common in the homosexual population. And many gay men weren't using condoms. (Remember that the primary use of condoms prior to education on preventing various VDs was contraception, which isn't an issue in a gay relationship.) So at the time the rule was put in place, merely having gay sex was enough to instantly put you in a high risk group.