Effeminate man rejected from donating blood

[MobBoss]

It's outdated considered the vastly improved testing equipment available and considering it comes from the 80s when very little was known about HIV. Sure, continue to live in the bronze age when all that was holy was written.

Again this point has already been addressed and countered.

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.

Sure, we know more today than we knew in the 80s. How does having more knowledge explain that the HIV infection rate continues to rise in gay men after 30+ years of gaining more knowledge? How do you explain that?

 

[NovaKart]

And HIV doesn't only come from gays and to assume it does is just dangerous.

 

[MobBoss]

And HIV doesn't only come from gays and to assume it does is just dangerous.

We arent assuming it only comes from gays, at least I never would and never have.

However, whats even more dangerous is to assume that gays dont have a problem with the HIV infection rate, or that the HIV rate is the same for everyone. Its not.

This has been pointed out more than once in this thread: Gay men are the only demograph in which the HIV rate is still rising. You have avoided acknowledging that all through this thread. Apparently everyone else has clued in via all that knowledge gained since the 80s about HIV/AIDs. Why not gay men? Its not like its a secret that you can get HIV from risky sex anymore. I mean when you hear that the HIV rate is down even among IV needle/drug users but still going up in gay men, people should be shocked out of their socks over that. But instead it seems most desire to try and ignore it as if it doesnt matter.

Dont you think that matters at all in this discussion? This is the proverbial elephant in the room that no one wasnt to acknowledge. But its there, and its not going away anytime soon.

 

[The_Tyrant]

What the hell? Do you know where aids came from? Let me give you a hint; it wasn't from a gay man.

Why don't you tell that to my former biology professor. I'm sure he'll enjoy your little rants.

Because you can test blood for aids now, and shut up with that homophobic bullcrap.

This is exactly why any threads concerning gay "rights"/marriage never lasts for more than a few days before being locked by the moderators. The proponents of the issue at hand never consider the rational behind why a large majority of Americans are against Gay marriage/"rights" (religion, family values, personal conscience, health reasons etc) and instantly pull out the bigot/homophobe card.

 

[useless]

And HIV doesn't only come from gays and to assume it does is just dangerous.

It's a tactic used by the right and homophobes in general to paint gays as being these diseased evil people, who want to "recruit" and "warp" the minds of our children.

The_tyrant: I don't care what your professer has to say on the matter.

 

[GamezRule]

It originated in non-Human primates, IIRC, so that implies something a little creepy.

 

[useless]

It originated in non-Human primates, IIRC, so that implies something a little creepy.

Waiting for the inevitable "GAY MAN HAD SEX WITH APE".

Despite the fact we have no way of knowing if there was even sex involved, it could have been transported via blood.

 

[NovaKart]

Honestly you can find some Americans who think that Elvis is still alive, that's hardly a recommendation on the matter tyrant.

As for Mobby, well gay men are for one thing the most likely to be informed about their status and go for regular testing, something a lot of straight people don't do. You think that might be part of the reason????

 

[MobBoss]

Waiting for the inevitable "GAY MAN HAD SEX WITH APE".

Despite the fact we have no way of knowing if there was even sex involved, it could have been transported via blood.

So, your're saying the cry could be 'gay man shares needle with ape' instead?

Seriously, how it started is moot to this discussion. It truly doesnt matter. What does matter is whats currently happening and what to do about it.

As for Mobby, well gay men are for one thing the most likely to be informed about their status and go for regular testing, something a lot of straight people don't do. You think that might be part of the reason????

If gay men were more informed and had regular testing wouldnt you expect the rate to go down instead?

And no, I dont think better information/more testing is the reason. I think the reason is quite simply the continued and prolonged practice of unsafe/high risk sex and an utter unwillingness despite the risk to alter a perceived behavior or lifestyle.

 

[useless]

So, your're saying the cry could be 'gay man shares needle with ape' instead?

Seriously, how it started is moot to this discussion. It truly doesnt matter. What does matter is whats currently happening and what to do about it.

I think it's telling that you're automatically assuming it's a gay man or person, at all...

 

[MobBoss]

I think it's telling that you're automatically assuming it's a gay man or person, at all...

What part of me saying 'it truly doesnt matter' did you not get?

 

[GamezRule]

ORRR, it could have even resulted from an aggressive ape attacking a human, both parties blood made contact with each other for whatever reason, human surviving, human doing what humans do.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Or it could have been a bio weapon experiment by the US Army. I can wildly speculate too.

They have previous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb

 

[Tani Coyote]

Once again, it is simply a matter of asking the blood donor if he has done so in the past month.

... why didn't I think of this?

I am ashamed.

Of course, it runs the question of if they'd have an incentive to lie.

Though make there be stiff penalties for such a thing and we could get rid of it.

 

[Formaldehyde]

More words of wisdom on the subject from one of the leading authorities in the US today:

FDA Ban On Blood Donated By Gay Men Upheld

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.

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: 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: 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.

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.

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.

It is really Reagan and his complete lack of policies to deal with AIDs in the first few critical years who is responsible for so many hemophiliacs dying due to no tests or restrictions whatsoever on the nation's blood supply. And he did absolutely nothing for so many years because he and many other Republicans actually thought it was his god's revenge on gays. This is what has actually brought us to where we are today, and which is completely contrary to the science and technology which now exists.

Ronald Reagan’s Real Legacy: Death, Heartache and Silence Over AIDS

Rev. Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority, said, “AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals.” Patrick Buchanan, Reagan’s Press Secretary, said AIDS was “nature’s revenge on gay men.” Antigay Gary Bauer, Reagan’s domestic policy advisor, kept Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (selected because he was an anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist) away from Reagan:

”[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers who shared Koop’s evangelical convictions. As Dr. Koop related to me, “Gary Bauer [Reagan's chief advisor on domestic policy] … was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God’s punishment for them.”

Reagan finally mentioned the word “AIDS” in October 1986 and was virtually forced to deliver his first major speech on AIDS on May 31, 1987 on the eve of the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. He was the invited by Elizabeth Taylor to speak at a fundraiser for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, which Hudson helped start with a $250,000 grant given to Taylor. (Here’s a link to Reagan’s entire speech.) Outside the tented-event were protesters and yet another candlelight vigil.

Shilts wrote about Reagan’s 20-minute speech:

“Reagan’s program, of course, would do very little to actually stop the spread of AIDS. Though testing heterosexuals at marriage license bureaus created the illusion of action, very few of thse people were infected with the virus and very few lives would be saved. But then saving lives had never been a priority of the Reagan administration. Reagan’s speech was not meant to serve the public health; it was a political solution to a political problem. The words created a stance that was politically comfortable for the president and his adherents; it was also a stance that killed people. Already, some said that Ronald Reagan would be remembered in history books for one thing beyond all else: He was the man who had let AIDS rage through America, the leader of the government that when challenged to action had placed politics above the health of the American people.”

“By the time President Reagan had delivered his first speech on the epidemic, of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with the disease; 20, 849 had died.”

This is Reagan's true legacy. It lives on even today in the completely absurd government policies which still directly affect our critical need for blood donors.

 

[NovaKart]

Thanks for making this stand out. Reagan did so many stupid things and is a large part of why so many mental patients are out on the street. This is just icing on the cake. The fact that so many narrow minded people still accept this nonsense is really just sad.

 

[useless]

Reagan was a truly awful man.

 

[MobBoss]

More words of wisdom on the subject from one of the leading authorities in the US today:

Dude, that entire NPR thing was already cut and pasted (I dont know what search engine was used) earlier by Novacart.

This is Reagan's true legacy. It lives on even today in the completely absurd government policies which still directly affect our critical need for blood donors.

Hint: Our 'critical need' for blood donors isnt going to be met by gay men who havent had gay sex in the last 12 months (assuming this would replace the total ban). We have a critical need because your average person, gay or otherwise, doesnt think about donating because their lives havent been touched by any experience where a blood shortage affected them or anyone they know.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Would it? Is sexual preference a federally protected class?

Yes it is.

 

[ParkCungHee]

If I had homosexual blood, would I gain all the powers of a homosexual?