holy crap, Internet Oracle

[the_siobhan]

So it seems like if you want to get a lot of comments you ask a question about a controversial topic.

Let's experiment and see if I can do it again.

So I'm on a mailing list where the discussion topic is the ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood to Canadian Blood Services. The person defending this ban claims it is necessary to safeguard blood recipients against HIV and Hepatitis.

I claim overt bigotry.

What do you think?

[EDIT] To be precise, the actual ban is on men who have ever had sex with men. They also ask women if they have ever had sex with a man who has ever had sex with a man. They do not ask questions about safe-sex practices. They do ask if you have ever had a test for HIV and why.

Comments

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

Overt bigotry. Gay men also can't donate organs.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

I agree, overt bigotry and homophobia.

[reddragdiva]

They can in the UK, though their blood is still considered filthy and unclean.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Overt bigotry.

[emzebel.livejournal.com]

The American Red Cross has the same restrictions (although, I think for women, it's have you had sex with a man within the past 5 years who ever had sex with a man after 1976 or something like that).

Overt bigotry and a huge potential drain on the blood supply.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's bigotry because it's making a lot of immediate negative assumptions, namely that sex between men is always risky, that all men who sleep with men are not practicing safe sex, and from that, we can proceed to the assumption that all men who have sex with men are promiscuous.

Why ask about HIV testing if they're going to disregard the answers? If an applicant has tested for HIV and is nagative, why can't they donate blood?

[machineplay.livejournal.com]

Overt bigotry. Plain and simple. I really can't come up with anything more coherent than that. The stupid hurts my head.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Really? I wasn't aware of that.

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

I just learned that one a couple of days ago.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

There is a lag period between exposure and sero-conversion. So it's possible that if you were recently exposed you could pass the screening but still be infectious.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

It's only a 1-year deferral for women in the US (as of 1996, when that rule last applied to me).

Agreed on the overt bigotry. When the rule was first enacted it made statistical sense, but I'm pretty sure the odds have evened out considerably since then.

[holmes365.livejournal.com]

Same issue with the American Red Cross. I no longer donate because they make no effort to address risky behavior, you are damned regardless if you have ever had sex with a bisexual or homosexual male.
Bullshit, imo.

[reddragdiva]

The rationalisation is they're worried about the next blood-borne disease that they haven't detected yet passed on by disgusting faggots promiscuous unsafe sex.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

You're fucking kidding me.

People say this? In public?

[reddragdiva]

They don't say the crossed-out bit out loud.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Ah, I didn't know that. In that case, would it work to specify that blood donors must have X number of negative HIV screenings to qualify?

[excess-and-oohs.livejournal.com]

don't they screen all the blood anyway? not like they're going to just pass it on to the recipient with the donor's word that he or she has no blood borne diseases.

overt bigotry. retarded, too.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I figured that, but the identification of all gay men as promiscuous is still pretty fucking out there.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

They do, but it is possible to get false negatives. Also there is a lag period after initial exposure where you can pass blood tests because the virus hasn't become fully established in your body yet but you can still pass the virus on to others.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

It's practical bigotry; much easier to issue a blanket "no, thank you" than test every donation from a group that's statistically higher-risk.

Note: I'm good at devil's advocacy, and my opinion may or may not align with the above statement(s).

[reddragdiva]

1. that's what they're saying already, 2. they don't say gay men or promiscuity, they say "next blood-borne disease" (but don't mean malaria).

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

They do ask if you have any new sex partners. If they combined that with questions about safe-sex practices and testing, they could not only get more blood by allowing monogamous and celibate gay men to donate, but they'd also catch more high-risk heterosexual donors.

[ravensee.livejournal.com]

OVERT BIGOTRY.

Straight people get AIDS too, so they should ban us all.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

1. They test every single sample anyway.

2. They do not address high-risk behaviour in the heterosexual population which might be putting the blood supply at increased risk.

3. They are screaming about blood shortages and post-phoning surgeries because they have eliminated a large pool of healthy donors. I used to be the person on the phone telling the hospital that had just ordered 10 units of blood that we only had three to spare.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, those questions totally wouldn't fly in the US (IMHO). They don't ask about recent HIV tests, and they don't ask about sex partners other than if you're male and have slept with another male since 197? or if you're female and have slept with one of those males in the last year.