Gay Blood Donation Ban Could Be Lifted: Gay men may donate blood if abstinent for a year.

US News and World Report ^ | 11/14/2013 | By Nikki Schwab

[SeekAndFind]

Gay men just got a step closer to being able to donate blood.

Since 1983, men who have had sex with men anytime since 1977 were barred from donating blood, a policy put in place because of the HIV/AIDs epidemic, which especially ravaged the gay community in its early years.

But on Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety voted 16-2 to tweak the ban, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, suggesting instead that men who have had sex with men could give blood, but with a caveat. They’d have to be abstinent for one year.

It will be the Food and Drug Administration that makes the final call, but generally the HHS panel’s advice is respected.

[tallyhoe]

I thought abstinence wasn’t effective!!

Are you going to have them swear on the Bible?? They were abstinent?

[Beowulf9]

Oh, yes that’s a provable fact we can all depend on.

[wetgundog]

They’d have to be abstinent for one year

Yeah right, just take a quick look at M4M sex ads on Craigslist Personals and they can’t abstain for 5 minutes. Barack probably hasn’t obstained since he got brown stains from Pop Frank Marshall Davis.

[Fungi]

Bingo. How will this be enforced? Notice there is no way to do this. And why is 1.5 % of the population so important for blood donations?

[urbanpovertylawcenter]

Mark me Jehovah’s Witness, please!

[doc1019]

Nor would any logical thinking person ... but then again, we are talking about a government entity. ;-)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

That’s too bad.

We’ve donated blood on Christmas Eve to the Red Cross for more years than I care to admit. We brought our kids with us, so they wouldn’t be afraid of the procedure and would see donating as a positive thing when they were old enough to be donors, themselves.

From other articles I’ve read, The Red Cross is cool with polluting our blood supply with HIV and gawd knows what else.

Guess the tradition ends, now. Politically Correct people can do as they please; I want no more part of this.

If anything, I’ll now SELL my plasma, versus freely GIVING my blood to these PC idiots.

@#$%^&*!

[Jet Jaguar]

What healthcare workers know.

Patients don’t often tell the truth about their health.

[SkyDancer]

How do they prove it? Oh. They say they were. Got it.

[ConorMacNessa]

Makes total sense to me - HIV positive - abstinent for a year - what could possibly go wrong?

America demands Justice for the Fallen of Benghazi!

O stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their command.

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[doc1019]

They are not ... just exercising their “rights”, and to hell with the rest of humanity.

[Pox]

If anyone contracts HIV from a blood transfusion due to this PC decision, all 16 people on this Committee who voted to “tweak” this ban, should be immediately be executed, IMO.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The honor system only works with honorable people.

[lightman]

And so the lame duck Executive Order Session begins!

[DBrow]

“If anyone contracts HIV from a blood transfusion due to this PC decision, all 16 people on this Committee who voted to “tweak” this ban, should be immediately be executed, IMO. “

Just like the people involved in the Arkansas Blood Scandals, when prison blood infected a boatload of people. Nobody went to jail.

[TLI]

They’d have to be abstinent for one year.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, right.

.

[cdcdawg]

This one looks like opportunity, right after I build up my own blood bank.

[HiTech RedNeck]

People could be lying already about if they are “gay.” What is the actual incidence of HIV in banked blood, can someone say. I get the idea this is all for public consumption and in private they still tell, to prevent bringing real wrath on their community.

[Catsrus]

Answer: We don’t, and they will lie. Good God, what is wrong with these fools?

[eyedigress]

Why do they want to kill everybody?

Let gays provide blood to gays. I’m good with that.

They will shoot themselves in the head anyway.

Leave me the hell alone.