https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/statistics/ "Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) of all races and ethnicities remain the population most profoundly affected by HIV. In 2010, the estimated number of new HIV infections among MSM was 29,800, a significant 12% increase from the 26,700 new infections among MSM in 2008. Although MSM represent about 4% of the male population in the United States, in 2010, MSM accounted for 78% of new HIV infections among males and 63% of all new infections. MSM accounted for 54% of all people living with HIV infection in 2011, the most recent year these data are available." However, we note that another group is also at high risk: "Blacks/African Americans continue to experience the most severe burden of HIV, compared with other races and ethnicities. Blacks represent approximately 12% of the U.S. population, but accounted for an estimated 44% of new HIV infections in 2010. They also accounted for 41% of people living with HIV infection in 2011." But there are no laws/screening specific to blacks that I am aware of.
Also, at one point, all Haitans weren't allowed to donate blood: http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/14/us/now-no-haitians-can-donate-blood.html "The F.D.A. based its recommendation on the fact that for Haitians the primary route for AIDS transmission is through heterosexual intercourse, making it more difficult to identify people at high risk of AIDS. Officials point out that most people with AIDS who were born in the United States were infected through homosexual intercourse or drug abuse and know they should not donate blood."
The linked post does clarify a lot of points, including the apparent thoroughness of the FDA's measures. If the incidences of STD's is that much higher within the Gay community than other communities, then the logic is sound when using batch testing. Someone else in that thread makes the comment that MSM (borrowing the acronym from the other thread for those that didn't read it) donations would increase the blood supply by <5%, whilst the group itself accounts for ~50% of new HIV infections. While I don't know if the numbers are accurate or not, the imposed measures are logical ones if they are. If the incubation time is ~12 months for some STD's (again, didn't realise they could be that long. I generally think of infections as having incubation times of a few weeks at most), and the incidences of new HIV infections really are that high amongst MSM, then enforcing the delay on donations is the sensible decision. I think the main cause for the restriction, then, is the batch testing. If testing was done on a case by case basis, the restriction would be unnecessary. An individual carrying a disease could be selectively removed without worrying about leading to an entire batch of people being removed. With batch testing, that's not a possibility. All of the above said, I totally understand why this looks like a homophobic law (especially given that was my standpoint up until the clarification darklord provides). Personally, I don't see an issue with following it up with individual tests of the samples within a batch. Such a method might even help someone who's carrying an STD and was unaware by notifying them of it. I don't know if testing an individual sample would help detect an early stage infection or not, though, so it may not actually do anything other than keep extra donations from being erroneously thrown out. No, it still is statistically more common in the LGBT+ community. There are legitimate reasons behind the law restrictions in this instance, and while they do restrict recent MSM interactions, they do not prevent gay males from donating under any circumstances, and have no impact at all on lesbian females. I disagree on the principles being the same. Psychological make up is significantly more complex than Pathology, there's a reason why the predictive power and repeatability of Psychology experiments is limited. Using 'future offence risk' as a factor for gaol sentence times would be a concerning step in the wrong direction from my perspective. This is interesting. I wonder how the demographics of that break down, if there are regional biases to it. Or possibly cultural biases. I know that, for example, in many African nations people actively refuse to believe in the existence of AIDS/HIV based on the words of their religious leaders. There are even some villages that actively turn away medicines from foreign aid in the misguided belief that they will bring them harm.
Also you guys type responses too fast. There I am, trying to get a nice comprehensive reply to everybody and I get the notification that there's another post in the thread. By the time I've incorporated it, another reply pops up!
I think this proves that the policies are not inherently or meant to be anti-gay, but are as they are to account for statistical trends. Personally, I think that if black people are unusually likely to donate tainted blood then they should be excluded, too - not because of hate against them or anything, but for purely statistical reasons. I see how it is a really bizarre and touchy subject, though.
Maybe. What I question is why specific risk factors are highlighted (sexually active gays, tattoos) while others are not (blacks, sexually active heterosexual). The example I showed above with the Haitians is somewhat interesting too because in that case they identified the group which is "sexually active heterosexuals" but decided to ban ALL Haitians instead of targeting that group (gay, straight, sex or not). Specifically, this part of the article offers insight as to why: "Leaders of Haitian-American organizations, who say there are 150,000 Haitian immigrants and their relatives in the Miami area and 350,000 in the New York area, say the policy is irrational because Haitians are no more likely to carry the AIDS virus than some other groups. The Haitian-American leaders also say the move will revive the stigma and bias that afflicted Haitians when the Federal Centers for Disease Control initially listed them as a high-risk group. That classification was later modified. The F.D.A. based its recommendation on the fact that for Haitians the primary route for AIDS transmission is through heterosexual intercourse, making it more difficult to identify people at high risk of AIDS. Officials point out that most people with AIDS who were born in the United States were infected through homosexual intercourse or drug abuse and know they should not donate blood." So it isn't because Haitians were statistically more likely to have HIV. It was because their gay men don't have the HIV risk that non-Haitians do so they ban all Haitians instead. Which is kind of an awkward thing to argue, IMO. ~ Of course, SOMEONE simply has to decide where to draw the line.
I remember that for some reason many of us Germans would be excluded from donating, at least during a certain time span, I think due to an epidemy or due to a medicament not approved for use in the US being used here at that time? ... Anyway, there are lots of rules. it's not a "we hate gays"-thing.
It's something that has all the hallmarks of a discriminatory law. In part, that's kind of because it is something that does discriminate. However, there do seem to be medically sound reasons for the discrimination. There are probably ways the laws can be edited to take into account more specific risk factors. For example, there are almost certainly geographic groupings where the incidences of HIV/AIDS is higher than average. It'd help reinforce the fact that these laws are in place based on statistical data, not due to prejudiced views. It could be due to proportions of the population. It may simply be the case that the volume of donations is high enough to outweigh the amount that would need to be rejected. The LGBT+ community is a minority, much more so than racial minorities (and of course, overlap does exist). The Haitian example is an odd one. I guess it was just simpler to blanket ban as what would normally be the statistically 'safer' group (in the sense that the chances of infection are notably lower) also happened to have high rates of infection, and presumably the gay Haitian population had comparable incidences to their non-Haitian peers. You could make an exception for Haitian lesbians and virgins, I guess, but given the time period the ban was put in place in (as in, the mentality and attitude of the times), I can see why it was blanket instead of allowing the specific exceptions.
This sort of thing always leads to the question of "Why this group and not that group?" In the case of the Haitians, they questioned whether there was even a statistical difference in their population. And also argued there were other identifiable groups who were at higher risk but weren't targeted.
