We need to test ALL donated blood for bugs.
But the results are not perfect. The blood bank warns you not to treat donating blood as a test, because there is still the liability that infected blood could test a false negative because you are not far enough into the disease to release the response, yet the blood is still infectious.
Of course, we already do. But no test is absolutely certain. 2003 and 2010 saw at least two cases were HIV was transmitted to blood recipients even WITH testing. Additionally, administrative error is always possible, accidentally allowing infected blood into the supply. The added layer of a deferral through screening is well justified.
This is not a static equation. As gay men now rush to donate by the thousands when they couldn't before, the risk increases exponentially of an error or a faulty reading. And, the ones that are now livid that the ban was not lifted completely will likely donate anyway and lie about their sexual activity in protest.
Basically, the incidents of identifying infected blood are going to skyrocket. And some of these WILL slip through the cracks.
They won’t test it.
They don’t even test it for chagas disease because that would be racist.
all blood’is. healthy folks blood is tested. what has changed over the years is that they test for more things than they used to. banning gay blood donations halted hiv/aids leeching into the hetero world and stopped more ryan whites from happening.