Should It Be a Right For Promiscuous Gay Men to Donate Blood?

[IDL]

If testing is done on all blood and is 100% accurate (I doubt it is), then why would they ask anyone anything prior to giving blood?

I suppose if you were to take blood from a high risk group and granting that testing works 100% of the time, then you are more likely to waste time and resources since the blood would have to be rejected. That's all I can think of.

The other possibility is that the testing is not 100% and an increased chance of receiving contaminated blood means an increased chance of it making its way into the system. Then it becomes a matter of what the odds are and how much you are willing to gamble.

 

[Pelosi2020]

If there is no real increased risk due to advanced testing and screening, then I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to give blood. Weird battle to fight imo.

There is a cost to testing and it costs too much to test every bag that comes in. They mix it together (I don’t know how much) and test it as a larger batch. If it fails then the entire batch gets tossed. There is also obviously a real cost to throwing away blood. One person with AIDS giving 1 bad liter causes the loss of the rest of the liters too.

So there are two economic considerations here, the cost of testing, and the cost of loss of good blood. Both costs drive the reason to exclude gays from participating.

The only thing that is a concern on my end really is the up to 6 month period where HIV can lie dormant before being detected.
But honestly, I'm not knowledgeable enough of the topic to really comment whether or not i's 100% safe.

The bigger concern to me is that AFAIK testing for AIDS is not looking for the virus itself (its far too small), it is looking for the specific antibodies to the virus. This is an important difference.

Magic Johnson was noted at one time to have gotten his antibodies down below detectable levels. It was thought that MAYBE he eliminated the virus. After stopping treatment the virus propagated and his antibodies spiked up again.

If someone gets their antibodies low enough theoretically they could give blood and potentially contaminate larger batches of blood.

 

[irish_thug]

In the States at least don't they NOT take your blood if you've had recent piercings, tattoos and the like out of a hope that weeds out any potentials for contaminated blood?

Same thing in Canada.

 

[Prutfis]

Rips alt account continuing his crusade against teh gays. Tell me, where did the french gay man touch you?

It´s not like they test people before getting their blood or anything like that. But they probably can´t check for teh gay virus.

 

[Otto!]

They should test all blood period. Relying on people telling the truth is a big fail.

 

[Ripskater]

Rips alt account continuing his crusade against teh gays. Tell me, where did the french gay man touch you?

It´s not like they test people before getting their blood or anything like that. But they probably can´t check for teh gay virus.

Lol, that was my friend who got banned. I know Johnny Mac.

 

[rearnakedchoke]

hiv is a gay disease, they just dont want to say it. Yes women can get it from men, but most likely bisexual men who got it from men. Men cant get it from women and we were lied to for all those years saying that we could.

 

[helltoupee]

hiv is a gay disease, they just dont want to say it. Yes women can get it from men, but most likely bisexual men who got it from men. Men cant get it from women and we were lied to for all those years saying that we could.

Men can't get it from women? I was always under the impression that HIV could be transmitted through vaginal fluid. Likelihood is low, but to say that it's a lie that men can get it from women is news to me.

 

[manlyseaeagle]

They should be allowed to give blood but as long as they don't spit it out

 

[Cygnus A]

I have no idea whether there are concrete health reasons to avoid sexually active gay men donating blood, but that's the only question that matters here imo.

There are. http://www.poz.com/pdfs/P04-14p53.risk_transmission.pdf

 

[djacobox372]

Correlation =/= causation

Hetro females are FAR more likely to have HIV than gay females, should we ban them from donating?

Minorities are also far more likely, should they be banned?

Heck maybe we should only allow straight white males to give blood.

 

[Fawlty]

The OP should be allowed to give blood, but only if he gives it all at once.

The chance of errors with bloodwork is high enough that I wouldn't choose to let gay men donate blood. That's discrimination but I think it's justified still. Get the total HIV/AIDS rate estimate down below 1 in 1000 and then it starts changing my mind.

 

[bigkick]

I was living in the UK in the early 1990s, during a big mad cow disease epidemic. Im unable to donate blood as a result. I was nowhere near the areas of the country that were affected, but apparently that doesn't matter.

If I can't donate for this reason, I can understand why high risk sexual activity would disqualify you from the donor pool as well. Stupid lawsuit.

 

[no fat chicks]

Lol, that was my friend who got banned. I know Johnny Mac.

he goes away and you return. . . . what a coincidence



If testing is reliable than let them donate.

 

[SRN]

Well, what's being promiscuous? Having sex? Having no sex for a year is certainly not realistic for an adult male so that rule basically forbids gay men to donate blood.

Risky behaviour should be banned, not an entire sexuality. Lots of gay men are in a monogamous relationship for example. Others are so terrified of getting HIV that they are obsessed with safe sex. It doesn't seem fair to ban those men from donating their blood. Specially considering their blood will be checked for diseases any way.

 

[SRN]

In Canada when I donate blood they do a bunch of tests and ask you a questionnaire about your sexual/drug/travel habits. You can screen out for a bunch of reasons. I’ve screened out for travel and drugs a few times. As I’ve never had gay sex I don’t know what happens when you answer that question or the questions about having sex with Africans. If your blood fails for something like aids or hep c you get a letter telling you you’re banned for life.

Gay or bi men can't donate blood in Canada.

 

[Halifax]

Can't they just test them beforehand? Or at least test the donated blood before they use it? I guess it's cost related, but I would think that they would test all blood before injecting it into someone else. I don't know how it all works, but I hope they aren't just using the honor system to distinguish clean blood from dirty blood, before they actually use it.

This.

Isn't blood testing a regular thing?

If it is tested and clean, what's the problem?

Is the worry they use condoms less? Hell, it was rare for me to use a condom with girls, even randoms I picked up at the bar. You just trust their word that they are on birth control and clean.

In retrospect, I'm amazed I didn't catch something or knock someone else up before I settled down and got married. But condoms ruin the moment and remove a lot of the sensation so.....yeah.

 

[Prefect]

I don't think it should if there is a surplus of blood. It all comes down to how desperate they are for blood. I do though like the idea of religious nutbag getting pumped full of Barbara Streisand grade homo blood.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

I don't think it should if there is a surplus of blood. It all comes down to how desperate they are for blood. I do though like the idea of religious nutbag getting pumped full of Barbara Streisand grade homo blood.

what a creepy thing to like.

 

[tenniswhiz]

In Canada when I donate blood they do a bunch of tests and ask you a questionnaire about your sexual/drug/travel habits. You can screen out for a bunch of reasons. I’ve screened out for travel and drugs a few times. As I’ve never had gay sex I don’t know what happens when you answer that question or the questions about having sex with Africans. If your blood fails for something like aids or hep c you get a letter telling you you’re banned for life.

And if your blood passes, they keep persistently calling and emailing you every couple weeks afterwards to try to get you to come back and surrender another pint of blood.