Effeminate man rejected from donating blood

[GhostWriter16]

Whatever rules you may personally like to see, blood donation isn't a right. You don't have a "Right" to give blood. The whole point of the thing is to ensure that blood donation is as safe as possible.

 

[NovaKart]

I never said they did have an ideology, I was talking about you. And now here you are talking about gay people as some monolithic group that is responsible for the behavior of all of its members.

The FDA for one doesn't agree with them and many other organizations. Regardless of using the word Disease in their title it doesn't make them the foremost expert on it.

And good Lord Dommy no one said it was a right. We brought that up above.

 

[MobBoss]

If you have something from the FDA that counters those numbers from the CDC lets see it.

And why would the FDA track disease rates among demographs?

Seriously, Nova, it just sounds like you are arguing to argue as opposed to accepting all the facts surrounding this issue. And bringing up accusations of politics and religion, and denying the validity of an organization like the CDC on this issue is just.....desparate.

 

[GhostWriter16]

And good Lord Dommy no one said it was a right. We brought that up above.

I wasn't addressing anyone in particular. My point was that giving blood is for the benefit of the donatee, not the donator (I'm well aware "Donatee" is a word I made up). Therefore, someone shouldn't really be able to complain "They rejected me to give blood." Giving blood is about someone else, it is a selfless act.

If they reject you because your blood may potentially spread HIV, and they feel certain demeographs have more likelihood to spread HIV, and the only way to avoid this risk is not allowing that demeograph to give blood, that's what they need to do, for the sake of the person being donated too, because it IS about them.

Now, if there are other suggestions of ways that could have the same effect (Reducing the risk) than merely not allowing gays to donate, I'd be OK with that as well. But this isn't an ideological issue, its a medical one.

 

[NovaKart]

The FDA were the people who originally started the ban and now they've gone back on it and called for more screening instead of a blanket ban.

As for the above post, you don't really know who the blood is going to so we don't know what the person's opinion would be, some would be fine with it and others wouldn't.

 

[MobBoss]

The FDA were the people who originally started the ban and now they've gone back on it and called for more screening instead of a blanket ban.

So you cant give me figures from the FDA that counter the stats from the CDC.

I didnt think you would be able to. The mission of the FDA, while related to the issue, is still vastly different than that of the CDC.

 

[NovaKart]

What the 44% stat? I don't take issue with that, what I'm talking about are effective preventative measures and a more nuanced screening process. Why do you have to turn this into a pissing contest? Act your age.

 

[MobBoss]

What the 44% stat? I don't take issue with that, what I'm talking about are effective preventative measures and a more nuanced screening process. Why do you have to turn this into a pissing contest? Act your age.

I am. In fact, I'll look up what the FDA says about this, since you seem to think they disagree with the CDC on some things.

Here we go, strait from the FDA website: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/QuestionsaboutBlood/ucm108186.htm

Blood Donations from Men Who Have Sex with Other Men Questions and Answers
What is FDA's policy on blood donations from men who have sex with other men (MSM)?

Men who have had sex with other men, at any time since 1977 (the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States) are currently deferred as blood donors. This is because MSM are, as a group, at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and certain other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion.
The policy is not unique to the United States. Many European countries have recently reexamined both the science and ethics of the lifetime MSM deferral, and have retained it (See the transcript of the "FDA Workshop on Behavior-Based Donor Deferrals in the NAT Era" for further information.). This decision is also consistent with the prevailing interpretation of the European Union Directive 2004/33/EC article 2.1 on donor deferrals.

Why doesn't FDA allow men who have had sex with men to donate blood?

A history of male-to-male sex is associated with an increased risk for the presence of and transmission of certain infectious diseases, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. FDA's policy is intended to protect all people who receive blood transfusions from an increased risk of exposure to potentially infected blood and blood products.

The deferral for men who have had sex with men is based on the following considerations regarding risk of HIV:

Men who have had sex with men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence (the total number of cases of a disease that are present in a population at a specific point in time) 60 times higher than the general population, 800 times higher than first time blood donors and 8000 times higher than repeat blood donors (American Red Cross). Even taking into account that 75% of HIV infected men who have sex with men already know they are HIV positive and would be unlikely to donate blood, the HIV prevalence in potential donors with history of male sex with males is 200 times higher than first time blood donors and 2000 times higher than repeat blood donors.
Men who have had sex with men account for the largest single group of blood donors who are found HIV positive by blood donor testing.Blood donor testing using current advanced technologies has greatly reduced the risk of HIV transmission but cannot yet detect all infected donors or prevent all transmission by transfusions. While today's highly sensitive tests fail to detect less than one in a million HIV infected donors, it is important to remember that in the US there are over 20 million transfusions of blood, red cell concentrates, plasma or platelets every year. Therefore, even a failure rate of 1 in a million can be significant if there is an increased risk of undetected HIV in the blood donor population.
Detection of HIV infection is particularly challenging when very low levels of virus are present in the blood for example during the so-called "window period". The "window period" is the time between being infected with HIV and the ability of an HIV test to detect HIV in an infected person.
FDA's MSM policy reduces the likelihood that a person would unknowingly donate blood during the "window period" of infection. This is important because the rate of new infections in MSM is higher than in the general population and current blood donors.
Collection of blood from persons with an increased risk of HIV infection also presents an added risk if blood were to be accidentally given to a patient in error either before testing is completed or following a positive test. Such medical errors occur very rarely, but given that there are over 20 million transfusions every year, in the USA, they can occur. That is one more reason why FDA and other regulatory authorities work to assure that there are multiple safeguards, not just testing.
Several scientific models show there would be a small but definite increased risk to people who receive blood transfusions if FDA's MSM policy were changed and that preventable transfusion transmission of HIV could occur as a result.
No alternate set of donor eligibility criteria (even including practice of safe sex or a low number of lifetime partners) has yet been found to reliably identify MSM who are not at increased risk for HIV or certain other transfusion transmissible infections.
Today, the risk of getting HIV from a transfusion or a blood product has been nearly eliminated in the United States. Improved procedures, donor screening for risk of infection and laboratory testing for evidence of HIV infection have made the United States blood supply safer than ever. While appreciative and supportive of the desire of potential blood donors to contribute to the health of others, FDA's first obligation is to assure the safety of the blood supply and protect the health of blood recipients.
Men who have sex with men also have an increased risk of having other infections that can be transmitted to others by blood transfusion. For example, infection with the Hepatitis B virus is about 5-6 times more common and Hepatitis C virus infections are about 2 times more common in men who have sex with other men than in the general population. Additionally, men who have sex with men have an increased incidence and prevalence of Human Herpes Virus-8 (HHV-8). HHV-8 causes a cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma in immunocompromised individuals.
What is self-deferral?

Self-deferral is a process in which individuals elect not to donate because they identify themselves as having characteristics that place them at potentially higher risk of carrying a transfusion transmissible disease. FDA uses self-deferral as part of a system to protect the blood supply. This system starts by informing donors about the risk of transmitting infectious diseases. Then, potential donors are asked questions about their health and certain behaviors and other factors (like travel and past transfusions) that increase their risk of infection. Screening questions help people, even those who feel well, to identify themselves as potentially at higher risk for transmitting infectious diseases. Screening questions allow individuals to self defer, rather than unknowingly donating blood that may be infected.

Is FDA's policy of excluding MSM blood donors discriminatory?

FDA's deferral policy is based on the documented increased risk of certain transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, associated with male-to-male sex and is not based on any judgment concerning the donor's sexual orientation.

Male to male sex has been associated with an increased risk of HIV infection at least since 1977. Surveillance data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that men who have sex with men and would be likely to donate have a HIV prevalence that is at present over 15 fold higher than the general population, and over 2000 fold higher than current repeat blood donors (i.e., those who have been negatively screened and tested) in the USA. MSM continue to account for the largest number of people newly infected with HIV.

Men who have sex with men also have an increased risk of having other infections that can be transmitted to others by blood transfusion.

What about men who have had a low number of partners, practice safe sex, or who are currently in monogamous relationships?

Having had a low number of partners is known to decrease the risk of HIV infection. However, to date, no donor eligibility questions have been shown to reliably identify a subset of MSM (e.g., based on monogamy or safe sexual practices) who do not still have a substantially increased rate of HIV infection compared to the general population or currently accepted blood donors. In the future, improved questionnaires may be helpful to better select safe donors, but this cannot be assumed without evidence.Are there other donors who have increased risks of HIV or other infections who, as a result, are also excluded from donating blood?

Intravenous drug abusers are excluded from giving blood because they have prevalence rates of HIV, HBV, HCV and HTLV that are much higher than the general population. People who have received transplants of animal tissue or organs are excluded from giving blood because of the still largely unknown risks of transmitting unknown or emerging pathogens harbored by the animal donors. People who have recently traveled to or lived abroad in certain countries may be excluded because they are at risk for transmitting agents such as malaria or variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). People who have engaged in sex in return for money or drugs are also excluded because they are at increased risk for transmitting HIV and other blood-borne infections.

Why are some people, such as heterosexuals with multiple partners, allowed to donate blood despite increased risk for transmitting HIV and hepatitis?

Current scientific data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that, as a group, men who have sex with other men are at a higher risk for transmitting infectious diseases or HIV than are individuals in other risk categories. While statistics indicate a rising infection rate among young heterosexual women, their overall rate of HIV infection remains much lower than in men who have sex with other men. For information on HIV-related statistics and trends, go to CDC's HIV/AIDS Statistics and Surveillance web page.Isn't the HIV test accurate enough to identify all HIV positive blood donors?

HIV tests currently in use are highly accurate, but still cannot detect HIV 100% of the time. It is estimated that the HIV risk from a unit of blood has been reduced to about 1 per 2 million in the USA, almost exclusively from so called "window period" donations. The "window period" exists very early after infection, where even current HIV testing methods cannot detect all infections. During this time, a person is infected with HIV, but may not have made enough virus or developed enough antibodies to be detected by available tests. For this reason, a person could test negative, even when they are actually HIV positive and infectious. Therefore, blood donors are not only tested but are also asked questions about behaviors that increase their risk of HIV infection.

Collection of blood from persons with an increased risk of HIV infection also presents an added risk to transfusion recipients due to the possibility that blood may be accidentally given to a patient in error either before testing is completed or following a positive test. Such medical errors occur very rarely, but given that there are over 20 million transfusions every year, in the USA, they can occur. For these reasons, FDA uses a multi-layered approach to blood safety including pre-donation deferral of potential donors based on risk behaviors and then screening of the donated blood with sensitive tests for infectious agents such as HIV-1, HIV-2, HCV, HBV and HTLV-I/II.

How long has FDA had this MSM policy?

FDA's policies on donor deferral for history of male sex with males date back to 1983, when the risk of AIDS from transfusion was first recognized. Our current policy has been in place since 1992.

FDA has modified its blood donor policy as new scientific data and more accurate tests for HIV and hepatitis became available. Today, the risk of getting HIV from a blood transfusion has been reduced to about one per two million units of blood transfused. The risk of hepatitis C is about the same as for HIV, while the risk of hepatitis B is somewhat higher.

Doesn't the policy eliminate healthy donors at a time when more donors are needed because of blood shortages?

FDA realizes that this policy will defer many healthy donors. However, FDA's MSM policy minimizes even the small risk of getting infectious diseases such as HIV or hepatitis through a blood transfusion.

Would FDA ever consider changing the policy?

FDA scientists continue to monitor the scientific literature and to consult with experts in CDC, NIH and other agencies. FDA will continue to publicly revisit the current deferral policy as new information becomes available.

On March 8, 2006, FDA conducted a workshop entitled "Behavior-based donor deferrals in the Nucleic Acid Test (NAT) era". The workshop addressed scientific challenges, opportunities, and risk based donor deferral policies relevant to the protection of the blood supply from transfusion transmissible diseases, seeking input on this topic. Participants were given the opportunity to provide scientific data that could support revising FDA's MSM deferral. The workshop provided a very active, open and broad-based scientific dialogue concerning current behavior-based deferrals and explored other options that may be considered and the data needed to evaluate them.

FDA's primary responsibility is to enhance blood safety and protect blood recipients. Therefore FDA would change this policy only if supported by scientific data showing that a change in policy would not present a significant and preventable risk to blood recipients. Scientific evidence has not yet been provided to FDA that shows that blood donated by MSM or a subgroup of these potential donors, is as safe as blood from currently accepted donors.

FDA remains willing to consider new approaches to donor screening and testing, provided those approaches assure that blood recipients are not placed at an increased risk of HIV or other transfusion transmitted diseases.

I do want to emphasize on thing mentioned in all that again:

FDA scientists continue to monitor the scientific literature and to consult with experts in CDC, NIH and other agencies. FDA will continue to publicly revisit the current deferral policy as new information becomes available.

It would appear that the FDA DOESNT disagree with the CDC, but rather works with them and considers them consulting EXPERTS on the matter and in fact uses their data to determine who can give blood and what reasons exclude a person from donating. Hopefully this link from the FDA will put all this debate to rest and we can agree that keeping this screening practice is a good thing.

 

[RedRalph]

I'd go with whatever is the safest method scientifically, but I think it's pretty ridiculous to stop someone becuse they 'seem' gay. I've met plenty of gays who 'seem' straight, so it's obviously a pretty crap screening method.

 

[NovaKart]

Wow, you can use google to cut and paste!

I'm going by what was said in the original article posted.

The fact is, the Red Cross, the American center of Blood Banks and America's Blood Centers all disagree with the policy and they are people who actually work in this field every day unlike you or me.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18827137/ns/health-aids/t/banned-life-gay-men-still-cant-donate-blood/

The UK will lift its policy in the near future. Several countries including Italy and Spain have altered their policies. The FDA is a bit confusing about this because they have gone back and forth in considering lifting the ban and from the article it mentioned that they were just after more effective screening.

I don't see how you can honestly think that the idea that a man who has had sex with another man once since 1977 is barred from giving blood is reasonable. For similar high risk sex activities there are just 12 month referrals. Why wouldn't this be suitable for gay men?

 

[Formaldehyde]

The UK will lift its policy in the near future. Several countries including Italy and Spain have altered their policies. The FDA is a bit confusing about this because they have gone back and forth in considering lifting the ban and from the article it mentioned that they were just after more effective screening.

Indeed. It won't be long now before this obviously absurd policy is also dropped in the US. It almost passed last time the FDA voted on it. We just need to get rid of a few more homophobes in the FDA or bring even more pressure on them.

 

[MobBoss]

Wow, you can use google to cut and paste!

I'm going by what was said in the original article posted.

The fact is, the Red Cross, the American center of Blood Banks and America's Blood Centers all disagree with the policy and they are people who actually work in this field every day unlike you or me.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18827137/ns/health-aids/t/banned-life-gay-men-still-cant-donate-blood/

The UK will lift its policy in the near future. The FDA is a bit confusing about this because they have gone back and forth in considering lifting the ban and from the article it mentioned that they were just after more effective screening.

I don't see how you can honestly think that the idea that a man who has had sex with another man once since 1977 is barred from giving blood is reasonable.

Your link is 4 years old. My link was the current page of the FDA on the matter.

And given the facts that were highlighted from the FDA page on the issue, I dont see how anyone can think allowing gay men to donate blood is reasonable given the current stats of their demograph. I mean that FDA link addresses every, single, argument you have brought into the discussion and counters it neatly and factually. You literally have no argument left in consideration of that.

In fact, here you exercise your only option left to you: to deny what the FDA page says and ignore the facts of the matter.

/thread over.

I don't see how you can honestly think that the idea that a man who has had sex with another man once since 1977 is barred from giving blood is reasonable. For similar high risk sex activities there are just 12 month referrals. Why wouldn't this be suitable for gay men?

Because not everyone tells the truth. Thats why. Also, there are people that are HIV positive out there right now and arent aware of it at all, because they thought they were in a monogamous relationship, but their partners werent. Thats why as well.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

There always the claim that the current guidelines are due to homophobes and bigots...

 

[MobBoss]

There always the claim that the current guidelines are due to homophobes and bigots...

From the FDA page:

FDA's deferral policy is based on the documented increased risk of certain transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, associated with male-to-male sex and is not based on any judgment concerning the donor's sexual orientation.

 

[NovaKart]

Thread over? Your insistence on turning this into a pissing contest is pathetic. Grow up! Are you marking a notch in your treehouse or something?

You're insisting on a policy that even blood banks, people who work in this field, disagree with.

Anyway here's a look from the opinion of someone who works for the FDA from NPR:

A government public health committee voted to uphold the FDA ban, which bars any man who's had sex with another man since 1977 from donating. The restriction was imposed in 1983 when there were no reliable tests for screening blood for HIV.
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

NEAL CONAN, host:

Amid the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the early 1980s, the FDA banned blood donations from men who'd had sex with another man after 1977. The policy remains in effect to this day. Gay rights advocates protested the ban as both unfair and unwise.

Earlier this month, a government public health committee concluded the policy was, quote, "suboptimal," but voted to keep it in effect anyway.

Joining us now to talk about this law and the science behind it is Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, with us today from member station WHYY in Philadelphia. Nice to have you back on the program.

Professor ARTHUR CAPLAN (University of Pennsylvania): Hey, Neal. How are you?

CONAN: I'm well, thank you. Did this ban make sense at one time?

Prof. CAPLAN: Well, I have to confess, I chaired the Advisory Committee on Blood, Safety and Availability for four years. That was the group that upheld the ban. During my time there, I tried to get the ban overturned.

It did make sense at one time. Back in the early '80s, we did not have very good testing for blood, and infectious agents like HIV virus could get into the blood supply. Blood, when you use it, is recombined. You take many different donors and sort of put them together. Sometimes you're making blood products like clotting factor a hemophiliac would use. And when you're making these combinations, it means one infected donor can influence thousands of other units of blood.

So very risky, very dangerous and indeed took a terrible toll in the early '80s on the hemophiliac community. They have to use blood products to stop their bleeding when they get injured. That clotting factor is crucial. It's made from blood. And sadly, thousands died because of slow action on the part of government to get at-risk donors out of the pool.

CONAN: Well, what's changed since then?

Prof. CAPLAN: So what's changed is better testing. And today I know listeners will have heard a little bit about mapping the human genome...

CONAN: Mm-hmm.

Prof. CAPLAN: ...but remember, we're also mapping genomes of viruses and bacteria. In fact, you'll remember, Neal, not too long ago there was a gentleman, Craig Venter, announcing he'd made a whole artificial bacteria by copying the genes of a bacteria. So we...

CONAN: First computer-created life form, he called it.

Prof. CAPLAN: First computer-created life form. So that's all of a piece with understanding what the component instructions are of different viruses and being able to identify them.

There's a fancy name, nucleic acid testing, NAT testing, that's used all over the blood supply today. And it works very, very well. What wasn't around in 1983 that led to a kind of horrible slaughter of hemophiliacs would not happen today in 2010 because we are carefully testing the blood supply. And when the committee said policy suboptimal, what they meant was we have this great test and yet we're still not being guided by the science.

CONAN: Well, another objection is that the ban assumes that all gay men are, by definition, high-risk donors and that all heterosexuals are, by definition, not.

Prof. CAPLAN: Another huge problem. So if you - the current policy is, if you ever had male-to-male sexual activity since 1997, once - excuse me, since 1977...

CONAN: Yeah.

Prof. CAPLAN: ...you're out of the pool. Well, that means that other people who engage in risky behavior, if you have heterosexual partners, engage in unsafe sex practices, visit prostitutes, use IV drugs, you're not being excluded, sort of blanket exclusion in the way that gay men are. So it doesn't make any sense, except as a matter of discrimination, to exclude one risk group completely and let others sort of go with abandon, if you will.

So the testing is our best weapon. It really works well. The one tiny problem with testing is, if I do get infected with HIV, it takes a little while for that virus to get into my system and multiply enough so that I can be tested to know that I got infected. That's called the window period. And it probably takes at least a few weeks.

So it does make some sense to try and urge people who engage in any risky activities, sexual or IV drug abuse, to not be donors if they've done that, say, within the past 60 days, just being super safe.

CONAN: But those...

Prof. CAPLAN: Then...

CONAN:...those can be homosexual or heterosexual or both.

Prof. CAPLAN: They could be homosexual, heterosexual or both. A 60-day window, I think, would, you know, capture everything that might escape the current testing. And the other side of this is we need more blood donors. The blood supply in the United States - and again, you'll know this from the calls that go out every holiday. Fourth of July is coming. There's going to be a lot of demand for blood - car accidents, motor vehicle accidents. Donors are on vacation. You know, we're relying on a tiny percentage of Americans to supply blood. Numbers like one in 250 are the kind of numbers that account for who donates blood and an even smaller number of those people donate blood more than once.

CONAN: Mm-hmm.

Prof. CAPLAN: So you have very few Americans doing it. To be even a little more scary, older Americans, the World War II generation, gave more blood than younger people do today. So we need blood. And by excluding gay men, you're taking people out of the pool who might be able to help supplement this ongoing shortage that only gets worse of not having enough blood. We want safe blood, but we also want to have enough blood.

CONAN: We got this email from Michael(ph) in Oklahoma City. I came out as a gay man in 2002 when I was 21. Up to that point, I donated every 56 days. After I could no longer in good faith check the no to the MSM, a man-who-have-had-sex-with-other-man box on the donor form, I stopped donating even though I knew my blood was still safe to give.

I would love to donate again but you cannot donate unless it's been at least a year since you've had sex with a man. I think the law is still discriminatory. I always practice safe sex and get treated on a regular basis, which is more than I can say for most of my straight friends. It always breaks my heart when they're desperate for type A-negative blood and I have to tell them no. I finally have to - I finally had to have to have the OBI, the local blood bank, take me off their donor list. I shouldn't have to choose between my sexuality and saving lives.

Prof. CAPLAN: I agree with that. I think we have to understand that the terrible problems of the '80s left a deep, deep scar within the hemophilia community. They got ravaged by HIV. They had as bad an experience with death and morbidity as any group in America. So that lingers. You have to understand the reluctance to sort of go back to the gay men and allow them back in in the context of that terrible story.

But the science has moved. It doesn't make sense to just pick on one risk group out of many, heterosexual and homosexual. And as this email is telling us, sometimes people go in and donate blood anyway. We're relying on the test to pick them up, you know? Just because we have a policy doesn't mean that people aren't going to say, I don't care, I'm going to donate blood anyway.

CONAN: I'll check that box anyway, I don't care. Yeah.

Prof. CAPLAN: Yup. Yup.

CONAN: There - the - do you attribute the decision by the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability to hemophiliacs, that fear you were talking about?

Prof. CAPLAN: I do attribute it to fear. And I'll give you a little political background having been on this committee some years ago, but I get the politics of our blood supply, I think. Groups that rely on the blood supply every day, every week, every month to live - sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, people with immune disorders - they are concerned about safety. They're using blood products all the time and they want the safest blood supply possible. They're organized. They come to the committee meetings. They lobby.

There is no group of people who say I'm about to have a caesarian section and I'm going to need blood. I'm about to have a car accident and I'm going to need blood. We don't have, in other words, lobbies for groups of people who need blood unexpectedly or in emergencies or because of terrible accidents. So you hear much more in Washington about the groups that need blood every day. Safety tends to trump availability. That is to say, the groups that are there lobbying and arguing, their focus is safety, maximum safety. But the groups that are out there who need blood, and that might be any one of us on any given day, we're not in Washington. We're not organized because it's unexpected and it's an emergency.

CONAN: Well, how long do you think that this policy has been in effect even when the science suggests that it's no longer needed?

Prof. CAPLAN: A decade. And I thought this year we might actually get to the point where we overturned it. Other countries have. France has. Many other countries have done away with this ban for life, for one, male to male sexual contact 30 years ago. They haven't had any problems as far as I know with safety in their blood supply systems.

Senators were arguing and taking up the cause. People like John Kerry said it's time to get rid of this ban. I hoped that that would happen. I hope that fear and the history, the terrible history here might be able to be tamped down by reliance on the testing, but it still hasn't happen.

CONAN: There are at least one other group that is barred from giving blood and those are people who lived in Britain for the certain years when there was a mad cow disease or fear of mad cow disease and that it might - this includes me. I was the London bureau chief for a while. I can no longer give blood. Would that be picked up by this test too? Is that - has that time passed?

Prof. CAPLAN: It has - that test would not yet - those little bugs, they're called prions, and they actually are not testable. We don't have a test that picks them up yet. Still, the evidence that you can transmit that particular agent in blood donation is not there. In other words, if you looked at the United Kingdom, they don't have reams of people falling over from mad cow disease even though they had that terrible epidemic of mad cow disease. So, again, in trying to be safe, if you follow the policy of not taking donors who spent significant amounts of time in the UK and, by the way, in other countries where mad cow disease broke out, we probably have reduced the overall donor pool by about nine to 10 percent. So we don't have enough blood. We bumped out a bunch of people. I'm not saying there's no risk factor of getting mad cow disease in, but in England it hasn't happened. In laboratories, you don't see the - it's very tough to give a rat mad cow disease by transfusing blood from a rat that has mad cow disease, so it's next to impossible to do it.

So we're erring on the side of safety, but we continue to put ourselves in jeopardy of shortage.

CONAN: And this excess of caution - you must have empathy, though, for those who, as you say, rely on blood supply for their very lives.

Prof. CAPLAN: I have huge empathy. And I've sat there and watched discussions occur with pricing of these products going out of control because companies can gouge because they know they got these people over a barrel. I know what the history is for groups like the hemophilia community in terms of deaths that they went through. I understand the fear when you're sitting there, saying, every week, I've got to give my child a blood product, and I want that blood product to be safe. It's got to be safe. But the science has taken us in a better direction. We can at least protect against the HIV worries and other infectious agents, maybe not mad cow, but the other ones.

And I think overall, we'd still be better served if we got rid of the outdated discriminatory and not scientifically based policy. We're not - we're letting in a way too much caution drive us in a direction that winds up putting everybody at risk because we don't have enough donors.

CONAN: Arthur Caplan, thanks very much for your time today.

Prof. CAPLAN: My pleasure.

CONAN: Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, with us today from member station WHYY in Philadelphia.

 

[aelf]

There always the claim that the current guidelines are due to homophobes and bigots...

I mean, you can't deny that there are homophobes and bigots who support such guidelines. Why, I think we can see that!

 

[MobBoss]

Thread over? Your insistence on turning this into a pissing contest is pathetic. Grow up!

You're insisting on a policy that even blood banks, people who work in this field, disagree with.

Actually, if you think this, then you've misread your own article. Your article mentions only 3 entities that disagree with with a lifetime ban as opposed to a 12 month ban. Those entities are: the Red Cross, the AABB (an international blood assocation) and America's Blood Centers (which is an affiliation of blood banks across the USA, but it doesnt represent ALL blood banks across the USA). So your implication that everyone that works in this field wants it changed simply isnt accurate.

Also, you dont seem to realize that what is being recommended wouldnt allow for a monogamous gay couple to then donate blood freely. Only someone that hasnt had sex with another man in the last 12 months would be allowed. It doesnt remove MSM as a permanent disqualifier, it just gives it a 12 month inclusive period. So unless your monogamous gay couple hadnt had gay sex in a year, then they would still be denied the ability to donate blood.

As to your Edit: one mans opinion a policy does not make.

 

[NovaKart]

Eh, those entities actually work directly in the field of blood donations unlike the CDC, do you know of another more relevant organization? Anyway this guy directly works in the FDA and you can't say anything federal isn't influenced by politics.

Anyway this thread is "finished" according to your expert opinion, why don't you post elsewhere?

Or if not, even Tammy Faye came over to our side.

 

[GamezRule]

@OP: So basically they just followed an old law that made sense at the time, but is no longer needed. Simple solution: Repeal the old law.

 

[MobBoss]

Eh, those entities actually work directly in the field of blood donations unlike the CDC, do you know of another more relevant organization? Anyway this guy directly works in the FDA and you can't say anything federal isn't influenced by politics.

I think the most relavent organizations are indeed the CDC (for statistical analysis) and the FDA (for legal implemention) on this issue. And again, I remind you that those you list as being 'in the field' are still recommending a 12 month ban on anyone having MSM sex, and simply NOT a free pass to donate. Ergo it STILL discriminates against the demograph, it just changes the ban from a lifetime ban to one of 12 months. So I dont know why you are touting these 'experts in the field' so much - they still recommend the same kind of discrimination and denial of the MSM demograph from donating blood. And as I already and factually pointed out, those 3 groups simply dont include everyone 'in the field' as you have implied over the last few posts.

Also, you just made another error. The guy in the interview doesnt work for the FDA, he is the professor of Bioethics at University of Penn. He was formally on the panel (for 4 years) that advises the FDA on these issues. So your claim that he 'works for the FDA' isnt even a fact in your own link.

Anyway this thread is "finished" according to your expert opinion, why don't you post elsewhere?

Considering how this is going for you I can see why you would desire that.