“WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration announced on Tuesday that it would scrap a decades-old lifetime prohibition on blood donation by gay and bisexual men, a change that experts said was long overdue and could lift the annual blood supply by as much as 4 percent.”
Look forward to your future infusion of gay blood! Actually, I always thought this ban was weird for many reasons, but also since “gay” is a self identification. What about repressed gays who are in self denial? Or what about people who are only 60% gay (based on Kinsey scale or others). I guess their blood will have 40% less “gays” than full gay blood.
It’s a decades old policy from a time when people were more prejudiced and misunderstood things like AIDS transmission. The fact that the FDA lifted this ban in 2014 probably means that medical consensus already thought it was safe in like 1984.
^It is now, but back when HIV just hit the scene they didn’t test for it. Now, according to the CDC, blood transfusions account for such a small part of overall infections it’s put in the “other” category.
Gays have been prevented from donating blood because of the extremely high rate of HIV in that community. According to cdc, despite comprising only 4% of the population gay men accounted for 63% of new HIV infections in 2011. Their rates of infection have actually been increasing over recent years.
HIV tests are not 100%, they only test for the virus’ antibodies which don’t present themselves for weeks after infection. Transfusions are a small part of overall infections but keep in mind that might be because high risk populations have been excluded from donating blood, it may be an indication that these policies are working.
Hopefully I’m wrong, but I’m afraid this change in policy change is driven by political correctness. Note that IV drug users are still being prohibited from donating blood despite accounting for far fewer infections.
Yeah, the test for HIV in blood isn’t 100% effective so the policy is to exclude those at a high risk of infection (like others that are excluded such as people with recent tattoos or a blood transfusion in Africa). This provides two levels of protection really for the general population. I’m all for gay rights and equality but giving blood isn’t really a human right. I worry Americans are putting others needlessly at risk for a slight increase in blood donors. As with everything medical, Canada will adopt the FDAs position in a month or two, independently of course…
About time this happened. All the blood is tested. No, it’s not 100%, but it’s damn close. No, donating blood is not a right, but I’d say benefits outweight the costs.
As an aside on transmission: consider the calculus of transmission: A straight man with HIV and a gay man with HIV who have infected nobody yet, but have the same number of sexual partners. And each of their partners has the same number of sexual partners, etc… The original men each infect 2 people and their partners each infect two people. Now consider the size of the pool for potential partners for each of the original men (and their partners). The pool for the gay/bisexual guy is like 1/15th the size of the straight pool. If each of them is equally likely to infect someone, of course it’s going to travel faster and produce a way higher infection rate for the reference population (i.e, two people in their respective populations are much more likely so share a partner in the gay popluation than in the straight one).
Given that, I think that if you’re in a same-sex monogomous relationship, the risk of contraction is comparable and there should be no delay on when you can donate from your last same-sex contact.
HIV is not the only reason they are prevented. Someone could be allergic to a drug in their blood. That and they are much, much more prone to a basket of other things that makes them not suitable.
Don’t want to get into the details but apparently transmission rates are much higher for gay populations than heterosexual ones. Also, the ban only allows gays who did not have intercourse within the past year from donating effectively eliminating 50% of potential donors in that population according to the article I read.
Hmm, I did not expect this kind of resistance from AF people. Perhaps my San Francisco origins have distorted my expectations.
While more gays than non gays have HIV, gay blood donors will be screened for infection, just like non gay donors are screened if they have a risk of other diseases like malaria. Furthermore, as the article states, gay donors will still face rather strict restrictions - particularly, that they cannot have had sex with men for 12 months; even men in monogomous relationships will be excluded.
HIV transmission via blood donation is not a major issue today, nor will it be after gays start donating blood. It is just one of those scary boogieman things that people are disproportionately afraid of (like plane crashes or terrorism). However, blood shortages are a major issue and kill thousands of people in the US each year. A non observably small increase in HIV transmission likelihood is a very small cost relative to the benefits of increasing the blood supply.
Unfortunately, many public policies today are inspired by political correctness, and not by science or facts. However, lifting the lifetime ban on blood donations by gays is not such a policy. This change has been advocated by hospitals, doctors, and blood banks for years. It is the right thing to do in order to improve public health overall.
Most of the above is jibberish. Some liberal educated people who like the idea of equal rights for gay people are still scared of them if it’s not in the context of their most pure thoughts. Once you actually need blood, an organ, or witness gay affection it’s no longer something you actually support. If it’s sharing a drink and telling people you have a gay friend it’s fun and you’re viewed as compassionate. This is not to even discuss generally ignorant people, but it’s silly to keep harboring discrimation on topics that are truly nonissues.
one question i have is, how many people who are at high risk of having AIDS are donating blood, gay or not? i wouldn’t think that people who engage in casual sex or sharing of needles are primary candidates to opt to help society by giving blood. my perception is that it is those who value society’s constructs who would perform such an activity, gay or not.
i would expect very little difference in the value and the propensity to give blood between a man in a monogomous heterosexual relationship and a man in a monogomous homosexual relationship.
i agree that most people are still uncomfortable with gays, shown through how guarded they are in conversations about the topic and their body language around those who are gay. i think it is some innate thing as heterosexuals. that said, i think those of strong moral conviction truly want equality for that part of the population and i think in Canada, we’re 90% of the way there. i can’t say the same about the states as the South is still known to be gaybashing territory.
if you actually get to know a gay persion, it is easy to be comfortable and see the person as 100% equal. as rights for gays increase and eventually reach that of heteros, more and more people will become fully comfortable and eventually all will be comfortable, or be ridiculed for being the true @$$muncher.
this action is a step in the right direction. i have an uncle and an uncle’s “friend” who’ve been together for 30 years so i’m obviously 100% pro-gay and see them as being 100% the same as any other couple because they do everything the same as all other hetero couples. because i don’t see the one thing they do differently, it doesn’t matter, and they should be entitled to do everything my wife and i are entitled to do.
that’s kind of my point. we allow hetero drug users to give blood but we restrict homosexuals from donig so? i would think that drug users have a higher risk of passing on diseases through blood than gays.