The deferral period's bullshit. Sure, it's progress but that's the equivalent of giving someone a paper umbrella in a rainstorm and asking them to keep standing out in the rain instead of showing them where shelter is (and I'm sorry if that metaphor falls flat. I'm tired.)
What pisses me off when discussing blood donation policies for MSM, is that people tend to cite HIV rates among MSM and stop right there. They usually don't even consider any alternative to a blanket ban. I think that when a donor ban against a particular group of historically marginalized people is to be considered, it needs to go through a two step process: 1) Determine whether or not that group of people have a higher-than-acceptable risk. 2) If 1 is true, determine whether you could easily break this group of people into smaller subgroups of people that have an acceptably low risk.
The 12 month celibacy deferral is still a discriminatory policy that needs to be addressed. If the screening process is as good as the FDA claims, there shouldn't be the need for the deferral.
I do think that everybody needs to be tested before donating blood, or have the blood tested when they've given it - no matter on sexuality - it would be kind of rude to give blood that had illness in it to someone whose already ill and make them worse. What's annoying for me is in UK you have to be eight stone or more to give blood. I'm a healthy weight at six stone ... surely being a 'healthy weight' gives a clue I should be able to donate. Silly people who think everyone whose six stone are under weight, they're missing out on me giving blood.
Yes, a lot of the rules exclude good donors and there are a lot of inconsistencies. I've seen the explanation for weight as being about blood volume. On average, certain size people have a certain amount of blood, and they take the same amount from everyone. Therefore, the volume they must take is too much for a smaller person. They cannot take partial bags -- they discard a bag if it isn't filled all the way for some reason. I barely make the weight requirement and tend to faint, so I don't donate. My partner is on permanent deferral for an HIV-related reason, but they'd allow me to donate. We consider him safe and have unprotected sex, but the FDA says he fits into one of their deferral categories. You'd think they'd exclude the sex partners of permanently deferred people.
I'm sorry but I don't really understand why people are so upset about this? In my country all blood is always tested but despite this we still have bans and deferral periods. This is because the tests are not infallible and certain infections may lie dormant yet be contagious for months. Why MSM are targeted? It's because HIV prevalence rates are statistically much higher for MSM than for non-MSM. (In my country about half of HIV infections are on MSM yet they constitute only a few percentage points of the overall population.) Since MSM constitute such a small percentage of the overall population, including them would not provide a very high increase in overall supply of blood yet the blood that they provide is considerably riskier than the blood they currently have. In my opinion this is not a discrimination or equality issue but medical issue. All I'm saying is that these decisions should be based on rational scientific analysis. I don't know exactly how these risks are calculated and what is deemed acceptable risk but based on my understanding of my own country's system, the decision is based on statistical analysis. I'm willing to change my opinion if you can demonstrate through fact based analysis that inclusion of MSM would not increase costs or risks of the blood relative to the gains.
Blood makes up 7% of the human body weight. As blood donations are a universal size (470mls, about 1pint) I'd imagine this means people under 8 stone would be disproportionally affected by a donation. -Someone weighing 10 stone would be giving about 13% of their total blood. -Someone weighing 6 stone would be giving about 22% of their total blood. So 1/8th vs 1/4 give or take. That is quite a big difference, and would probably mean someone at 6 stone would take a lot longer to recover following donation, with a higher risk of complication (be it fainting or nausea).
Statistically, drug users tend to have HIV at a much higher rate than non-drug users. Does that mean we should ban people who consume alcohol? After all, they're drug users too (even if alcohol is the only drug they use). No, that would be stupid. The fact of the matter is that you can divide the high-risk group "drug users" into a higher-risk group and a low risk group (e.g., "drug users who only use alcohol"). Similarly, not all MSM are of equal risk. If you just take the group as one whole in which each member is equally high-risk. What upsets me is when people refuse to consider breaking MSM into smaller groups to identify MSM who are just as low risk as non-MSM who are permitted to donate blood. After all, a man who has never had anal sex before, only has sex with his husband (who he believes is monogamous), and is using PREP just to be safe is much lower risk than a guy who often has bareback sex. There likely is some way of easily sorting out the low-risk MSM (who are at least as safe as non-MSM who are permitted to donate) from the risky MSM.
I agree. I think its particularly silly in light of the fact that gay marriage is now legal in the US. Because under this policy, a married gay monogamous man is banned from giving blood, but a single promiscuous heterosexual guy who fucks many women without condoms could still give blood. That's just freaking absurd. Given the rising heroine epidemic in the US, HIV rates are going up in the straight population in general, including the sexual partners of heroine users and their partners. I honestly think there should just be blanket HIV screening for everyone. Its hard to say anymore who is or isn't an intravenous drug user or who might be sleeping with one. In some areas, grandmas are getting hooked on heroine. And then, of course, there is the fact that people lie about what they do. That said, if they are gonna discriminate against me, then fuck them, they can't have my blood. But they also better not come crying to me the next time there's a blood shortage. Dumbasses. :tantrum:
Apparently in the US, you can pretty much ignore laws if you cite "It's my religion!" as with Kim Davis. Hopefully they'll fix this loophole in the next century or so. :dry:
Good heavens, how absurd. If they pointed to racial minority groups nowadays and forbade them from giving blood after having sex with someone of the same minority, there would be riots in the streets, in spite of many having even stronger correlations.
I'm glad you see what I mean! I'm not sure the correlations are all that strong among racial or ethnic groups, either, though.
Well, African Americans in the US are statistically more likely to get HIV than other races. Same thing with gay/bi men. But of course they would never restrict African Americans from donating blood in any way. The deferral for gay/bi men who have had sex in the passed 12 months is just homophobic by its nature.
Canada still has very strict rules on who can donate blood, and ALL donors have to answer questions about their sex lives. A process that used to take 20 minutes tops, now takes over an hour. There are reasons for this. I quote: " In the early 1980s, about 2,000 Canadians were infected with HIV from tainted blood products. Many thousand more, perhaps as many as 30,000, were infected with hepatitis C. " You can't blame Canadians for wanting the blood supply screened very carefully. However, our new Liberal government has promised to open up blood donating to gays in the near future without the 5-yr no sex stipulation.
Canada still has very strict rules on who can donate blood, and ALL donors have to answer questions about their sex lives. A process that used to take 20 minutes tops, now takes over an hour. There are reasons for this. I quote: " In the early 1980s, about 2,000 Canadians were infected with HIV from tainted blood products. Many thousand more, perhaps as many as 30,000, were infected with hepatitis C. " You can't blame Canadians for wanting the blood supply screened very carefully. However, our new Liberal government has promised to open up blood donating to gays in the near future without the 5-yr no sex stipulation.