US: ‘Gay Blood Drive Day’ to call for end of gay blood ban

ARTICLE

A Gay Blood Drive Day will be held on Friday, to protest the continuing blanket ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood in the US.

The Food and Drug Administration currently imposes a blanket ban on donating blood for all men who have had sex with men, because of the “increased risk” of sexually transmitted diseases.

San Francisco Congressman Mike Honda said: “Despite tremendous advances in the medical and biotech fields, the Food and Drug Administration still bans blood donations from gay and bisexual men.

I say thoroughly checked blood from gay people as STD's are more prevalent in gay men than straight people.

What you say OT , are you in support of lifting ban ?

Don't hate da' playa', hate da' game. =P

Wait, worlock posts after being absent for like 10 years and he gets moderated?

@airshocker: I think they just got rid of his post since it had the other post in it. And that it wasn't really something held against him.

Seeing how blood is tested for STDs it make little sense to ban it. They constantly advertise that they need more blood, yet they don't want to accept more.

I'm just complaining because I couldn't see what it was to begin with.

Oh some user made up some story about how he thought a gay blood drive would go and worlock just asked if the post was meant to be funny.

“Our society is increasingly supporting equality for LGBT people. I will fight this ban that only marginalizes, stigmatizes, and stereotypes healthy people across the country.”

And there it is. This is just another, in a long line of bans against the LGBT community, that they will be going after to have changed.

I'm not allowed to give blood either. But that's cause they're afraid some communism was implanted in my system when I lived in West Germany.

Don't sound too excited

It's overwhelming. You have no idea!

I don't know enough about blood testing to say one way or the other but I would say if it's fool proof testing there would be no reason not to take blood from a gay person.

That said if we are in any way sacrificing out safety just to appease the feelings of the LGBT people....well that would just be stupid.

It's stagnant air left from the late 80's and 90's. Obviously AIDS still exists but it's not as "shockingly prevalent" now as they made it out to be be back then.

who said it's about appeasing the feelings of gay or bi men? Donating blood saves lives.

Like I said, IF.

Don't they test the blood?

They test the blood anyways so they should lift the ban,

The reason for the gay ban in blood drives is for the prevention of aids.

It's a legit concern. Gays are more likely to have STDs.

@bobaban:

That logic though...

So because gays are statistically more likely to have STDs that means we should blanket ban all of them from donating blood?

That's ridiculous.

I think they're just trying to save on administrative and staff outlays more than anything and gays are an easy target in this instance, but there's been a typical reaction from the homosexual community.

Shouldn't saving lives be the prime objective of any kind of healthcare?

it's not the 80's anymore.

I support the ban.

Why take risk =P

@AmazonTreeBoa:

Bold typeface? Add colour and underlining. Makes your point hold even more value...

There is no risk, blood needs to be screened before any blood is given to a recipient, gay or straight.

Is it 1980 again? Even if that were true the blood gets tested before anyone gets it into their system. There's really no reason for the ban other than some asshole politician wanting to stick it to gay people even more.

Gay men can't donate blood?

This is news to me.

I can't donate blood because I live in Europe for 5 years as a child and might have been exposed to mad cow disease.

Is it always done accurately ? I heard some people still get infected with HIV for unchecked blood transfer in some hospitals or healthcare centres.

Well, there's a difference between inaccurately screened blood compared to blood that hasn't screened at all. Those are two different scenarios that could result in someone getting infected. Honestly, I have no clue, it could be a 99.9% situation, which sounds nice on paper initially, until you realize that theoretically for every 1000 cases there would be one mistake made. I'd really hope they're 99.9999% accurate but that could be wishful thinking. I'd look it up but I need to sleep.

I don't even really understand how they can enforce this ban anyways. If you show up to a blood drive wearing pink, they send you home? My imagination is stretching thin...

Ahhh. Yeah , very rare cases tho ( Unchecked blood being transferred to needy nowadays ). I guess they happen at shitty or small town hospitals or at really emergency situations, still very rare.

Damn...gay people will stop wearing pink now. Crap...I hope they don't choose blue because that's my colour =P

I didn't know they banned gay people from giving blood. Their reasoning seems stupid assuming that they test all blood anyways. If they don't test all blood... that just seems stupid.

I was gonna ask if they tested for STDs anyways... And they do.

OMG IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD PEOPLE ARE ASKING TO BE TREATED AS EQUALS!

They test all the blood anyways (unless they actually don't and this screening process is all they use to determine most samples useability), so I'm not sure why they continue to lend credence to the AIDS hysteria from the late 1980's.

We've known for a while that heterosexual men and women can not only be highly promiscuous, but are as likely to be infected with a STI as anyone else who sleeps around, regardless of sexual orientation.It's dumb and would really help supplement the perma-shortage of useable blood.

Considering they should test any blood given from anyone so to ensure healthy blood is packed and used, the ban has been pointless from the start.

I donate blood every 3 months and within the 100 or so questions they ask it includes the "have you had sexual relations with another man in the past ________ days".

Some people don't know what discrimination is.

I remember hearing that at one time these blood test were a lot less accurate so it may have been useful at one point in history.

Sadly, that hasn't always been the case. A friend of mine had a blood transfusion in the 80's that was HIV positive. He's been living with the disease ever since.

I think generally the gay community is a bit more promiscuous than the average heterosexual. I know that might be an outrageous thing to say on this particular board and I don't have numbers with proof but it seems that way to me.

That's crazy. Did he ever sue the hospital?

Yikes, That is a serious error done by those testing the blood. I hope he got some sort of compensation for it even if that wouldn't make it all better.

Communism in West Germany?

Unless there is an overwhelming majority of homosexual populations being infected with STIs, this is uncalled for discrimination. The 1980s AIDS craze focused on homosexual men and apes was definitely just a stigmatization movement as I see it.

That is a stereotype leftover from the late '80's. There is no truth in it. There are heterosexual men and women who have been with hundreds of partners (some of which have knowingly been infected with HIV and continue to have unprotected sex without telling their partners). The only way to be sure is to test the blood... and they do that. There is no "higher average of promiscuity".

But, for the sake of argument, let's say you are right.

--

We'll assume for argument's sake that a tenth of the total human population is homosexual (I've heard numbers from 8-10%). There is no means to really tell. But assume that's true.

Now, if a third of those homosexuals are "more promiscuous than normal" (I'd like to know what a "normal level of promiscuity" actually is BTW), out of a population of 1,000,000 people, that gives us about 33,333 people that would be at increased risk of spreading STI's due to their higher partner count.

Assuming these numbers carry, that leaves 90% of the 1,000,000 people. Out of those heterosexuals left, let's assume a tenth of them are as promiscuous as their homosexual compatriots. That would give us a whopping 90,000 people at the same level of risk as homosexuals to spreading STI's. Even if we assume a TWENTIETH of the remaining heterosexual population is as prmoiscuous, that STILL is 45,000 people. About 12,000 more than the homosexual population.

Even if we were to be extremely biased and say "half of all homosexuals are dangerously promiscuous", that still leaves us with 50,000 vs the original 90,000 from the tenth of heterosexuals.

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The whole idea that "gays are sluttier" stems from the idea that homosexual cannot have meaningful relationships and CHOOSE to have sex with other men. This was the mindset of the era when AIDS was a "gay disease". It is a fallacious mindset to hold unless you can actually link to medical/scientific studies proving that homosexuals of a promiscuous nature (i.e. having lots of unprotected sex) it cannot be used a means to justify refusing to take their blood.

And this falls again to the concept that THEY TEST ALL THE BLOOD regardless of the screening process (which merely throws the sample out of consideration if one has come in contact with ANY infectous disease... for instance, where I live, they ask if you have come in contact with monkeys or monkey bodily fluids within the past 12 months, not to mention many prescription drugs also exempt samples from being considered).

Any person of high levels of sexual promiscuity should not be considered an ideal blood donor. Period. Regardless of orientation.

I don't know. It's not something he ever talked to me about. I found out through a mutual friend of ours, but never had the courage to ask him about it myself.

It makes me wonder what they actually knew about the disease back then. I know now they hold blood for 6 months to see if HIV or other things show up. Don't know if they did it back then.

Either way it is unfortunate. Just one thing that makes me glad about how medical science keeps getting better and better. I am sure such cases are much rarer now than they were back then.