drewxor:

bradofarrell:

drewxor:

bradofarrell:

tyleroakley:

thesassypanda:

This video hit really close to home…

Still important. Nothing has been done to change this.

Blarg. Okay. My roommate in my freshman year in college got in a huff about this. We both went to donate blood, we’re both gay, and I was a virgin at the time, but he wasn’t, so he couldn’t donate. He got all furious about it like he was being disenfranchised. But this is not a social issue, it’s a medical issue. Donating blood is not a right.

• More than half of all new HIV cases come from gay men.
• It takes a month (and rarely, years) for the virus to be detectable.
• Being gay isn’t a thing you get over in a year. You’ll always be at risk.
• Read this. Blood transfusion accounts for 2-4% of HIV infections worldwide.

Yes, they test the blood. But testing the blood is a second round of defense after asking questions to deduce risk factors. Because so many people lie on the paperwork, the government has started requiring more accurate but more expensive tests, that now go back to about two weeks before but cripple blood donation programs by increasing their operating cost. Education about risk factors and deferrals based on risks is inexpensive, whereas more rigorous testing is extremely expensive and still not bulletproof.

This mentality, that blood donation is a right, is actually hurting blood donation programs by requiring more expensive testing. If you want to help, use your gay disposable income to donate to the Red Cross, who, by the way, has been trying to end this policy. They urged the FDA to change it from a life time ban to a one year ban (i.e., sexually active gay men would still not be allowed to donate) but the FDA did not think their findings justified the increase risk.

Or if you really want to get to the root of the problem, donate to HIV research. This is a serious problem that is affecting our community and acting like it isn’t by fighting petty battles against science is misguided.

 No Brad, it is outright discrimination by a religious organisation using medical reasoning to support their ideology. So heterosexuals are at a 43% risk of becoming HIV+ and homosexual men are at a 57% risk? That’s only 14% difference and that’s enough reason to exclude 100% of homosexual men who want to donate blood? Considering that the number of gay men who have HIV is pretty low in comparison to the whole population of gay men and those who know they are HIV+ are not likely to try donating blood you’re really just excluding a very large number of people based on a very small difference because of their sexual behavior.
That level of testing is necessary regardless because there is still the possibility of someone who is unknowingly HIV+ giving blood. I agree that if gay men were able to give blood without the current restrictions, the rate of HIV transmission would probably increase. But you’d have an even bigger increase in the amount of legitimate blood available for life-saving transplants.

You’re forgetting that gay men actually make up a tiny percentage of the population? And also those statistics are not weighted against the size of these groups. Gay men make up for 57% of new HIV infections but only account for (lets say) 10% of the population. That does not mean gay men are a slightly higher risk, it means they are an immensely higher risk.

“I agree that if gay men were able to give blood without the current restrictions, the rate of HIV transmission would probably increase.”

Okay. Good.

“But you’d have an even bigger increase in the amount of legitimate blood available for life-saving transplants.”

So a bigger pool of less safe blood is better than a smaller pool of more safe blood? Nope.

 Yes, definitely, there is always a lack of blood available. “Sorry you got HIV but otherwise you’d be dead” is preferable to being dead?

<edit> Ok wait I should clarify more. I totally agree that there should be as much care taken as possible to stop HIV transmission, however tranfusing blood is not an ‘oh well we don’t really have to but lets do it anyway’ thing. And as for the increased risk. Lets take a gay male population of 5% (10% homosexual population excluding lesbians). We’ll say 20% of gay men have HIV, higher in some places but normally lower than that. And then there is a 2-4% chance that the tests done don’t pick up the infection. So even if every gay man who knew they already had HIV gave blood, you could still get a 5% increase in blood donations for 0.04% increase in the risk of HIV infection. I think it would be worth it considering the statistics wouldn’t even be that high.

Nope. There is plenty of blood. People in America don’t die from a lack of blood. The urgency of getting new blood in blood drives is that the supply needs to be constantly replenished, but it’s not like there’s not enough blood to go around and we’re in dire need for new blood. Also:

Leaving aside those people who don’t get to hospital in time, it’s more likely that you will die from a mistake during blood transfusion than you would die waiting for a much needed transfusion. Such as if the wrong blood type is given or there is an antibody incompatibility. Or if the donated blood has an undetected infection in it (such as HIV and vCJD in the past). People with certain conditions who need regular transfusions (such as those suffering from haemeophilia or sickle cell anemia and related illnesses) will also be at high risk of risks associated with blood tranfusion.

So. Nope. Nopesville.

So the outcome of allowing gays to give blood:

• More people get HIV from blood transfusions.
• No additional lives are saved.