Effeminate man rejected from donating blood

[MobBoss]

It contains factual information.

Some sure, and some obvious slant as well.....its still opinion.

Furthermore, this is a message board, not a congresional hearing so all we're doing is giving our opinions anyway and yours is as good as mine.

While all are entitled to their opinion, not all opinions carry equal weight or are equally informed. I've backed up my opinion with proven facts from the FDA and CDC, you've largely relied on others opinion as you do here.

And you saying this does nothing to refute my point about your 'improved screening methods'.

The screening isn't really less restrictive, it's just more specific so that argument doesn't really hold any water. And no, if you read the article you will see that it doesn't just ban mwm sex in the last year.

You dont think going from a perma-ban to one covering only the last 12/6/1 months is less restrictive?

I think its obviously less restrictive. I'm not sure how much a difference it will make in application, but of course its less restrictive.

And yes, everything reiterates something that has already been said earlier in this thread, that kind of happens once you pass 10 pages.

My bad. I thought you had something new to offer when you mentioned 'improved screening methods' and 'more thorough analysis'.

And btw, you totally ignored my point about one of your main complaints about the current policy: people lieing. Again, if someone will lie about their sexuality, can't they also lie about when they last had sex? Please address this.

 

[civ_king]

You know, when I post something absolutely obvious (less people donating means less blood, bad or otherwise), I don't need two people to post, starting with "actually..."

Blood stocks are in sharp decline (or were when I last heard about it), so (in this case at least) arbitrarily deciding that someone is too camp to give blood is utterly farcical.

Blood is tested in batches, therefore if one sample is tainted the whole batch is thrown out, if even a small amount of homosexuals (say 3%) who donated had HIV/AIDS then you've just ruined a very large amount of pints. Overall allowing homosexuals to donated could decrease the amount of blood available.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That's Canadian news. The hemophiliac scandals are so 80's medicine in the US, hardly anyone remembers they ever happened.

The people who still want to discriminate against gays while ignoring the real reason why there were so many victims in the first place certainly want to remember it. It is highly unfortunate, but blatantly discriminatory rhetoric and partisan politics dominate so many technological and scientific decisions in this country.

I'll end this thread by saying that this FDA policy is old and obsolete and no one in that organization has had the will to change it, especially since that agency is rife with political appointees, who will enforce the present administration's political agenda above health. This was especially prevalent in the Bush administration, when it had a furor over initially refusing to release Plan B on the over-the-counter market.

Indeed. But it will eventually be changed. It almost was last year when the FDA board voted 9-6 to continue this clearly absurd policy. Eventually, enough Reagan and Bush appointees will disappear from the boards and a scientific basis will once again prevail, at least as long as we don't elect even more far-right presidents who make even more partisan appointees to deliberately derail governmental committees such as this.

If only Reagan and his advisors didn't believe their god was deliberately punishing gays, much of this would have never happened. Their silence in the first few years doomed thousands to death, and many of them weren't even homosexuals but hemophiliacs and others who were the unfortunate victims of their bigotry and homophobia.

 

[NovaKart]

I think you didn't even read the article which mentions specifically what I'm talking about and others on this board who work in the medical field have mentioned the problems with the FDA and if the recent vote is an indicator then that means a lot of people in the FDA also disagree with the ruling. We're just arguing back and forth here and I'm tired of it. Go ahead, fight the good fight for discrimination.

 

[MobBoss]

I think you didn't even read the article which mentions specifically what I'm talking about and others on this board who work in the medical field have mentioned the problems with the FDA and if the recent vote is an indicator then that means a lot of people in the FDA also disagree with the ruling. We're just arguing back and forth here and I'm tired of it. Go ahead, fight the good fight for discrimination.

I read the entire opinion piece. Carefully, so I could address your points. You claiming I didnt is just diversion on your part to avoid my counters to your arguments.

And since the recent vote in the FDA upheld the ban, it would seem thats an idicator that even more people agree with the ruling.

And you again ignore my point about one of your main complaints to the process: people lieing, and me pointing out that those 'improved screening methods' dont do one single thing to mitigate that at all. After asking you to address it three times now with no reply, its patently obvious you have no counter to my point.

All you can do is appeal to emotion and claim discrimination based on religious reasons where there is none. Thats it, and it doesnt make for a very strong arguement at all.

 

[NovaKart]

Your description of the screening process makes it seem like you didn't read it.


Yes the improved screening process wouldn't necessarily make an impact on people lying but it kind of defeats the purpose of a screening process at all and would lead to simply relying on blood analysis alone.

As far as the FDA ban, it's a very controversial topic as we all can see and it's easier to leave things the way they are than to invite more controversy by changing them. I thought about putting up a smiley but I think I'll take the high road and avoid being snarky.

 

[Arakhor]

Overall allowing homosexuals to donated could decrease the amount of blood available.

That's complete conjecture and utterly unverifiable.

 

[civ_king]

That's complete conjecture and utterly unverifiable.

Okay

It's been a few years, so not only iirc but "if things haven't changed". In Canada, the blood donations are pooled into groups of ~1,000 pints, and the batch is tested. If a batch is bad, it's thrown out.

As well, apparently very few batches are contaminated. Apparently, people who donate blood are unlikely to have an STD.

When it was explained to me, the problem was that with so many pints being pooled, the odds of a gay man putting HIV into a pool was too high. Even if only 3% of gay donors didn't know they had HIV (because ones who did know they had HIV wouldn't donate), too many pools could be ruined.

I'm sorry

 

[Arakhor]

Then I have to assume that you think that only homosexuals have blood diseases and that no heterosexual blood is ever contaminated.

I'm sorry.

 

[Ajidica]

That is also Canada.
However, when looking at the number of gays who would donate blood and are unknowningly infected with HIV, do you have any proof that the number is higher then the number of straight blood donors who have HIV? Given that there are fewer gays then straights, I would think that the higher number of gays with HIV would be canceled out by the more numerous straights who have HIV.

 

[civ_king]

Then I have to assume that you think that only homosexuals have blood diseases and that no heterosexual blood is ever contaminated.

I'm sorry.

I never said that

That is also Canada.
However, when looking at the number of gays who would donate blood and are unknowingly infected with HIV, do you have any proof that the number is higher then the number of straight blood donors who have HIV? Given that there are fewer gays then straights, I would think that the higher number of gays with HIV would be canceled out by the more numerous straights who have HIV.

except the rate of homosexuals with HIV is vastly higher, the FDA link I posted earlier said 60 times

 

[Arakhor]

So, are women asked if they've ever indulged in sexual relations with another woman or is it just men that are asked about gay sex?

Is anyone asked if they've indulged in anal or oral sex at any time in their life or is it just male homosexuals?

 

[Atticus]

To be the receiving end of fluids makes the risk bigger (to put it bluntly), so you could reason in a similar way that women were more risky blood donors.

Civ_king, El Mac told to take that with a grain of salt. I think he might confuse pooling of sample with pooling all the blood.

 

[Ajidica]

except the rate of homosexuals with HIV is vastly higher, the FDA link I posted earlier said 60 times

Did it say how common undiagnosed HIV recipients are? Are they any more common then straight people who have HIV but don't know it?

 

[MobBoss]

That's complete conjecture and utterly unverifiable.

Likewise its complete conjecture that removing the lifetime ban but replacing it with a 12 month ban for recent MSM sex is somehow going to increase the number of donations. I'm not really convinced that it will.

So, are women asked if they've ever indulged in sexual relations with another woman or is it just men that are asked about gay sex?

Just men, as women who have sex with other women (WSW) dont have the HIV infection rate issue. Which is another reason I deny any discrimination along religous lines on this issue. We arent talking about homosexuals in general, we are talking about a specific demograph - that being men who have sex with men (MSM).

Is anyone asked if they've indulged in anal or oral sex at any time in their life or is it just male homosexuals?

Just males (MSM actually) for the simple reason that although other demographs may also engage in that risky behavior they dont do so at the rate that gay men do...which is part of the reason why the MSM demograph has such a shockingly higher rate of infection.

 

[Formaldehyde]

So, are women asked if they've ever indulged in sexual relations with another woman or is it just men that are asked about gay sex?

Is anyone asked if they've indulged in anal or oral sex at any time in their life or is it just male homosexuals?

Do you want the government to absurdly discriminate against all Americans, instead of just gay men?

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/us.htm

Perhaps we should reintroduce racism instead:

Apparently, there has been only a single documented case of HIV-tainted blood causing a transfusion recipient to get HIV in recent history in the US, which was caused by a bisexual male lying about his unprotected sex immediately prior to giving blood:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5941a3.htm

I'm sure that is plenty of reason to cause such a massive negative reaction over this.

 

[MobBoss]

It might help if you describe what your graph means.

And for the record, I dont want my government to discriminate for an absurd reason. I want them to discriminate for an entirely understandable and logical reason.

 

[NovaKart]

Discrimination based on race is an absurd reason, based on sexuality it's not

Just to throw a random question out there -

If a 6 foot tall drag queen with a resemblance to Grace Jones, a noticably African accent and track marks walks in to the clinic what would you do?

Congratulations if you know who Grace Jones is.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Do you want the government to absurdly discriminate against all Americans, instead of just gay men?

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/us.htm

Perhaps we should reintroduce racism instead:

It wouldn't be as effective. By not letting gay men donate blood (I still have a hard time believing there aren't any better causes to fight for...), you exclude 4% of the population and avoid 53% of the HIV cases. It probably saves a ton of money better spent elsewhere, but sooner or later they'll probably reduce this extra cost and gays will be allowed to donate too.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It still only halves the risk, which is actually completely negligible at this stage. And it still doesn't account for all those who lie about it to get their $40 each month.

I would much rather trust gay men who are freely donating their blood to tell the truth that they haven't engaged in risky sex in the past few weeks, than trusting those who actually need the money in order to help pay their bills. The gays and bisexuals who pass the "gaydar", the prostitutes, their customers, the IV drug users, and everybody else who engages in unprotected sex are quite likely going lie about it if they are that hard up for a few bucks.