Gay men can't donate blood in Orlando

If I had to think up a biologically reasonable explanation, I'd assume that there is a possibility of active vires existing in a sufficiently low quantity to be undetectable, but in sufficiently high quantity to reproduce, in donated blood. Also, tests have a false negative rate. I don't really see how this law is unreasonable, given the potential for death if anything goes wrong. And people with HIV are barred from donating, afaik, aren't they?

 

No, I'd rather you donated blood if someone needed it. It grows back.

 

Given they screen the blood anyway, there's no sensible explanation. I'm willing to bet the law was instituted back when the AIDS epidemic first kicked off and nobody understood what was going on with it. While it may have served a purpose then (not looked into it, don't know how good the identification of AIDS was in the early days of it), it certainly doesn't serve any purpose now. Our screening methods are constantly improving, and an archaic law does not need to still be in place.

Touched on it in my response to Boozha. When HIV/AIDS was first appearing, there were a lot of people who (incorrectly) thought it could only be transmitted by affected homosexuals, at least without transfusing blood. I would guess the logic was 'If they've gone a year without sex and haven't picked up HIV/AIDS, then they must be clean', or something along those lines. We understand the illness far better now, and while the incidence of HIV/AIDS is higher within the LGBT+ community, our improved understanding of the illness along with our drastically improved screening methods mean the old law does nothing but stop those who want to donate blood from doing so legally.

Then why not 'Anybody who has had sex in the past year cannot donate'? HIV/AIDS is not limited to LGBT+.

 

You might be right and the law might be strictly outdated due to our better understanding of HIV now; there should be an official statement by someone responsible for blood donations (don't you have this fancy "surgeon general" or something?), making the scientific position on that clear. If it is outdated it should be changed, but, well, the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly.

 

There's certainly a spotlight shone firmly upon it currently, though the circumstances required to do so are depressing. Hopefully the level of focus on the matter will be enough to get the law repealed.

 

"The government requires that the Red Cross (like any blood services operation) have multiple safeguards for its blood services. That includes asking a donor questions to identify any risks, checking his or her name against a national list of people who aren't allowed to give blood, testing for infectious diseases, keeping track of blood units so infected blood isn't released, and investigating any deviations from standards.

Because blood transfusions always carry a degree of risk, the FDA considers every step in that process critical to minimizing problems. "Failure of an individual safeguard does not automatically translate into the release of unsafe products," an FDA spokeswoman told ProPublica in an email, "however, it may increase the potential for risk.""

I mean ... if there is a notable difference between the safety of the blood of gay people and straight people, for whatever ever so unrelated reason, then it isn't really unfairly discriminatory to make a safety regulation out of it.

There is not enough data to make a clear decision one way or another, and I have no fixed opinion on this topic.

 

But again, as Sokolov's said several times, it's not about whether or not they're carrying a disease. It's about whether or not they've had sex. Incidences of HIV/AIDS are higher in LGBT+ communities, but it's still communicable in heterosexuals. And again, there are screenings and restrictions in existence for the illness.

Being LGBT+ doesn't make your HIV/AIDS more dangerous than a heterosexual's, or somehow less likely to be caught. Like I said in a previous post, I can understand why this law came into existence initially, and it is possible it was beneficial in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in the early days of the illness. But the restriction is entirely redundant now.

 

Just like there is a good reason for citizens united, right? There can't possibly be a law in the US of A that doesn't make sense!

Go on, tell me. I'll wait.

 

This was discussed on Reddit a few days ago. Basically it boils down to the testing is done in bulk, so if one person has HIV, then all of the donors that were in that bulk test are excluded from ever donating again.

https://m.reddit.com/r/neutralnews/..._blood_donation_ban_for_gay/d497721?context=3

 

Agreeing with Sok, thankyou for sharing that. It's good to know that the rule isn't in place as a kneejerk thing but does have statistical basis, and it was an interesting read from a purely personal standpoint as well. I didn't realise the incubation time was as long as 12 months for some STD's.

Given it does not appear to be a rule based upon discriminatory action, the only further thing I'll say on it is that I hope screening methods improve to a point where the rule can be safely repealed. It's pretty crappy to be ready and willing to help only to be told you can't, even if the reasons do have sound justification.

 

This kind of makes my point - it seems a way to minimze the chance of excluding a great amount of donors. It's a statistical decision, not a discriminatory one.

 

the exclusion seems to be based on the assumption that all homosexuals are sexcrazed fiends who cannot enter monogamous relationships and practice safe sex and thus all have diseases.

I do not know about gay people in Orlando but wouldn't the % of aids infected have normalized to levels comparable to the straight population over the past decade(s)?

 

No, just a statistically relevantly increased chance to have diseases, and therefore a reason to be excluded. I don't really know what the statistics say, but historically gay people were much more likely to bear STIs than hetereosexual people, for reasons that are entirely irreelevant to the issue of blood donation safety.

 

It's not the same principle at all. Not being able to donate blood is not a punishment. You don't go to prison for being more likely to have an STI, you just can't donate blood.

A better comparison would be someone being banned from working in construction because his frail body looks like, even though that might not be accurate, like he can't safely handle heavy machinery. (Except that person would have to pay to work in construction, too - donating blood is a bit stressful on the body.)

(Also, punishment based on statistical factors sounds more unconstitutional than taking away guns, but I don't think the two-toothed nuts will care.)