In a move that would indicate political correctness trumps actual health concerns, the Department of Health and Human Services is considering allowing gays to donate blood.
The National Journal reports:
A policy that bars gay men from donating blood for life is “suboptimal,” advisers to the Health and Human Services Department said on Tuesday, and needs another look.
HHS asked a committee of experts on blood and tissue donations to reexamine the policy and see if there is a way to let at least some gays donate blood.
“If the data indicate that a change is possible while protecting the blood supply, we will consider a change to the policy,” HHS said in a statement.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an HHS agency, has banned blood donation by any man who has had homosexual sex because of the risk of the AIDS virus. Soon after the AIDS pandemic began in the 1980s, people such as hemophiliacs who received frequent blood transfusions or blood products began to become infected with the deadly and incurable virus.
Men who have sex with other men, including gay and bisexual men, have an HIV infection rate 60 times higher than that of the general population, the FDA says. They have an infection rate 800 times higher than first-time blood donors and 8,000 times higher than the rate of repeat blood donors. Tests cannot pick up a new HIV infection in the blood with 100 percent accuracy; because blood is often pooled, many people may be at risk from a single infected donor.
Oddly, people who lived in Britain in the 1980’s during the Mad Cow epidemic are not being considered to be able to donate blood. Yup, they’re still prohibited for public safety purposes.
So why allow practicing homosexuals while not allowing other at-risk people? I guess, the people who lived in Britain in the 80’s need to start marching in parades or threatening to vote against Democrats or something. Maybe then they’d be allowed to donate blood.
Senator John Kerry said he wished to see an end to the “discriminatory ban.”
But this should not be viewed as a civil rights issue. This is a public health issue. I’m just hoping the HHS sees it the same way.
I’m assuming that they’re all just posing about this as a way to seem all liberal for the gay voting block. I’m assuming they’re talking about it but won’t actually do it. They must know that if people started getting AIDS from blood tranfusions again they’d be run out of town on a rail, right? They do prize public safety over votes, right? Right?
July 27, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Anon, you would of made a valid and thoughtful point, except you failed due to profanity.
There are a lot men who label themselves straight who have sex with other men. The evidence is present, I'm sure they don't other high risk HIV factors give blood also. Why put the public at risk?
July 27, 2011 at 6:27 pm
I guess anon missed the part about blood testing not being 100% with regard to new HIV infections. Oops.
Diane
July 27, 2011 at 6:28 pm
It should also be noted that the testing for HIV has a limited sensitivity. If the testing is done very near to the time of infection it will test as negative for HIV while actually being positive.
July 27, 2011 at 7:11 pm
The USFDA are idiots, as with most of the Ruling Class. Despite the credulous anon, HIV testing (as with most things) is not perfect. And Russian Roulette is just a variation on suicide, hence not permitted the faithful.
Of course, I have avoided transfusions for about 20 years now, for this very reason. That and having been resident in Canada when the Cdn Red Cross scandal of untested (or perhaps insufficiently tested) blood broke.
July 27, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Lots of good info from this post By Bryan Fischer called:
"Why homosexual behavior should be against the law"
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/100203
July 27, 2011 at 8:37 pm
HIV is treatable (though expensive) and the likelihood of a cure in the near future is very high;howewver, that said, I wish the homos had never introduced this virus into humanity. It is now spreading in the heterosexual population.
July 27, 2011 at 9:34 pm
I am not a homosexual hater. I do not think that barring them from giving blood is dicriminatory at all. It's the same for not letting one legged people into the army; for the safety of all. They are just a higher risk factor. I do hate it though when homosexuals use something like this to push forward their agenda. They know they can transmit disease but whatever makes them look better, right?
July 27, 2011 at 9:52 pm
I just tried to re-post this on facebook using 3 different techniques and every time I received a message from facebook saying this…
"This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this is an error."
Facebook is starting to censor language that is pro-biological order and natural law.
Just thought the brothers Archbold would like to know they are being censored.
July 28, 2011 at 12:48 am
If an HIV infected man raped another person he was charged with murder for infecting the other person. How is this going to be different? If a person causes another to become HIV infected and causes his death, he is a murderer. If the government enables it, the government is an accomplice.
Mary De Voe
July 28, 2011 at 1:15 am
I have not been able to give blood since the mid-1980s due to my (dubious) exposure to Mad Cow. I have never lived in the UK, but I still can't give blood. I have never considered asking the USFDA for a review. I assume, since Mad Cow/Kreuzfeld Jakob is undetectable in the bloodstream, the FDA is erring on the side of caution and I am good with that. If HIV can't be detected 100% of the time, I don't think the FDA should allow anyone at risk of carrying HIV to give blood.
July 28, 2011 at 2:40 am
My family and I aren't allowed to donate blood because we lived in Germany in the late 80's due to concerns about Mad Cow disease. There is no accurate test to determine whether or not we are carrying the disease (even though it's been 20 years) and I will say a whole bunch of military families, and areas with military bases, have been affected by these rules.
But I understand – it is better to be safe than sorry. Same reason a person who gets a piercing or tattoo has to wait a certain period of time before they can return to donating blood.
Which is exactly why people who engage in high-risk behaviors (aka engaging in homosexual sex acts) should not be donating blood either. Better to be safe than sorry when we are talking about the lives of people.
July 28, 2011 at 5:36 am
I'm not allowed to give blood because my ship helped with the recovery from the Christmas Tsunami in Thailand, and then pulled in for three day's shore leave.
(We went to a smaller port– chosen specifically because they NEEDED a cash influx, and we had a load of Marines that hadn't seen anything but desert for eight months and a load of sailors that hadn't seen anything but water and steel for the same time; last time I tried to give, I found out that act of mercy disqualified us….)
If three days in a less known port of Thailand is an indefinite disqualification….
July 28, 2011 at 12:02 pm
I don't know what the statistics are like in the US, but in the UK, we now have more HIV infections resulting from heterosexual sex than homosexual. I think the issue here has far more to do with promiscuous sexual culture in general, and a far more effective protection of public safety would be to bar those engaging in risky sexual behaviour regardless of orientation.
July 28, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Percentage or total number? I know it's a popular trick to compare raw numbers, as well as lumping in children who are infected with the heterosexual transmission statistics– when it's "only" a 60 times higher risk, that can cover the difference, as well as assuming heterosexual transmission unless they've been exclusively homosexual. (There's also the issue of GB having an influx of cultures where one simply does not talk about sex, and where women do not have the same assumed rights to say "use a rubber" as the general population.)
Last time I checked, various types of unprotected heterosexual sex were also disqualifying for blood donation.
July 28, 2011 at 6:22 pm
I must confess, I hadn't had a chance to look at the American statistics before posting that comment. Compared to the British, they're very interesting. 54% of UK diagnoses in 2009 (the latest figures available) came from heterosexual sex and 42% from sex between men. This does not include intravenous drug use, mother to child transmission or the recipients of contaminated blood products. However, in America it seems to be something more like 43% from homosexual sex, and only about 16% from heterosexual sex, the rest stemming from intravenous drug use, perinatal transmission and contaminated blood products. In both cases, the largest numbers of new infections are in the black community. The UK statistics clearly suggest that this seems to be strongly linked to heterosexual sex, often in sub-saharan Africa, but the US statistics don't give any indication as to whether this involves any immigrant communities, although it does seem to suggest that it's more driven by homosexual sex than it is in the UK.
Really quite interesting – I had no idea that the patterns were so different, given that we seem to in many respects share a sexual culture…
July 28, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Trying to avoid TMI, but the preferred state of the female aspect in some of those cultures means more tearing and thus more blood contact, which is theorized to be the reason male/male homosexual sex has such a high rate of transmission. I only knew about the Africa aspect of it because of that program the Vatican set up that cut down on transmission so much– I seem to remember it involved telling women not to do things to dry out the membranes down there because it causes tearing and raises infection risks. Watching folks try to delicately explain that in a family-friendly or at least clinical manner was kind of impressive.
I'm pretty sure that the effect of immigrant/refugee populations is a lot bigger in the UK, just because the relative percentage is so much higher.
July 29, 2011 at 6:25 am
I just recently needed blood transfusions to help save my life. If HHS allows active homosexuals to donate, I will refuse any further blood products. What can they be thinking?
July 30, 2011 at 12:49 am
Let Senator John Kerry prove his conviction by receiving a 100% transfusion of blood donated only by gays.