en who acknowledge having had homosexual sex within the previous five years will not be allowed to make anonymous sperm donations under new rules that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce today.Posted on 05/19/2004 10:03:57 PM PDT by NYC GOP Chick
en who acknowledge having had homosexual sex within the previous five years will not be allowed to make anonymous sperm donations under new rules that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce today.
New York State already bars gay men from donating sperm anonymously, and most of the nation's sperm banks have similar restrictions because of concerns over transmission of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
But a prominent gay rights group nonetheless denounced the new federal rules. Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said that the regulations were misplaced because H.I.V. tests were fast and very effective.
"It's one thing to base these rules on legitimate scientific concerns, but it's another to reinforce baseless stereotypes," Mr. Foreman said.
The rules are part of a years-long effort by federal drug regulators to strengthen the oversight of the harvesting, sale and medical use of human tissue, mostly from corpses. The federal government has long had rules governing the trade and use of blood and organs. But the extraction and use of things like bones, veins, corneas, ligaments and sperm by nearly 150 companies have largely gone unregulated.
This lack of oversight has led to at least one death and scores of injuries. Brian Lykins died in 2001 after routine knee surgery because the bone transplant he received was infected with virulent bacteria. An investigation revealed that the cadaver from which Mr. Lykins's transplant tissue was extracted had been unrefrigerated for 19 hours.
At least 66 people have received serious infections after similar transplants, according to information provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new rules govern the screening and testing of potential donors of all kinds of tissue. All donors must be tested for infections with H.I.V., the hepatitis B and C viruses, syphilis and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow. Sperm donors must also be screened for sexually transmitted diseases, including chlamydia and gonorrhea.
Gay men and others prohibited from anonymously donating sperm and other tissues will still be able to donate to friends and family members who are known to them.
Activists have been pleading for years with the Food and Drug Administration to announce its tissue rule, and since 1997 the agency has been saying that the rules would be announced within months.
When asked what took so long, Peter Pitts, an agency spokesman, said, "It's not a question of how long it takes, it's a question of getting it right."
Steven Lykins, Brian Lykins's father, said that the rules that will be announced today are nearly identical to those proposed by the agency in 1999.
"Why it's taken so long is a question that I've been asking over and over again," Mr. Lykins said.
Most sperm banks already freeze and quarantine specimens for six months, testing the donor at the beginning and end of that period, said Russ Bierbaum, chairman of the reproductive council of the American Association of Tissue Banks. Mr. Bierbaum also owns Reprotech, a sperm bank in Roseville, Minn. Since most anonymous sperm donors make routine donations, such testing is not difficult to perform, he said.
Besides the tests, donors must be asked a series of questions about their social lives. Sexually active gay men and people who use drugs intravenously will be barred from donations. If the donor is dead, the questions must be asked of a family member or doctor who is familiar with the medical history of the donor.
The regulations make extensive record-keeping requirements of tissue companies.
Mr. Pitts of the F.D.A. said that the agency was simply adopting rules already in place at most sperm banks.
There are approximately a million tissue transplants every year, double the number five years ago, said Bob Rigney, chief executive of the American Association of Tissue Banks. Some 83 tissue banks are members of the association and voluntarily abide by guidelines that mirror the new federal rules, Mr. Rigney said.
But an additional 70 tissue banks are not members of the association, Mr. Rigney said.
Mr. Rigney said that the new rules would not make transplants any more difficult to get but might make them more expensive. "The new rules will add considerable validation requirements that will be costly to implement," he said.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she hoped that at least some tissue banks would be put out of business because of the tightening restrictions.
"I view that as a positive thing to force out of business those tissue banks that are responsible for most of the problems," Ms. Collins said.
The F.D.A. is expected to adopt more rules governing the handling, processing and storing of tissues later this year. Those rules are expected to be much more extensive and difficult to carry out "but they're by far the most important," said Ms. Collins, who has held hearings about the need for the new rules for years.
There's a test for Creutzfeld-Jakob disease? When did this happen?
AIDS is not a disease, but a civil rights status.
My question is, does the sperm recipient have the right to know if the donor is gay?
How dare Adolf Bush's FDA restrict the precious freedom of the perverts to spread their diseased precious bodily fluids to the unsuspecting heteros? How can that dreaded "breakout" come about with such obstructions?
Seems that Matt Foreman has had a lot to say recently:
Homosexual leader vows to 'torture' opponents
The head of a national homosexual organization is vowing to politically "punish," "terrify" and "torture" activists who oppose his organization's agenda on "gay" rights – which he says would give him "endless satisfaction."
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C., made the comments in yesterday's edition of Between the Lines, a Detroit area homosexual newsmagazine, the American Family Association of Michigan points out.
In addition to declaring his desire for retribution against "local legislators and leaders" who oppose the homosexual agenda, Foreman expressed a goal beyond securing legal same-sex marriage, that is gaining other means besides marriage by which homosexuals could access public and private financial benefits.
Foreman told the interviewer of his plans to go after his opponents.
"I'm … interested in going after, politically, local legislators and leaders that have launched these anti-gay initiatives," he explained. "'We beat you, now we're gonna go back and we're going to affirmatively punish you' – people who launch this stuff, so that they understand not only that they're not going to win, but that there are consequences to it.
"We would set up a [political action committee] and go in and terrify them with a credible challenge. ... So we go in, for a modest investment of money and torture these people, which would give me endless satisfaction. And the word would go out very quickly, 'You know what, this really isn't worth it...'"
(Homosexual) Activists Blast President Bush for Hypocrisy
The Federal Marriage Amendment is dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate -- and President Bush knows it, one homosexual activist said.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, blasted President Bush on Monday, after Bush said, "the sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges."
"I say, Mr. President, you would not be living in the White House but for a 'few activist judges,'" Foreman said in a press release..."
It's getting heavy, isn't it, Ed? I'm shaking my head so much people around me probably think I have palsy.
How bad can it get? I hope to God that enough good people will wake up and start shouting, public rallies and demonstrations which will wake up more people, that REAL conservatives will run for office, both local and federal, that leftist activist judges will be kicked out one way or another, that parents will snatch their kids out of public or liberal private schools...
And the more faithful people pray for God's mercy and intervention, however He sees fit, the better.
They got stomped 20 years ago, when they first began deliberating ways to try to contain AIDS. The gay community raised hell, demanding that they not be "quarantined" or "marked". The gays won, and we've seen how well that strategy worked out.
More than that, CDC has subsequently collaborated with GLSEN and other gay orgs to introduce gay propaganda and indoctrination into schools under the rubric of sex-education initiatives, in the course of which gay sexual techniques are featured prominently (and therefore explicitly endorsed by the CDC and the cooperating school system).
There's a "queer gene?" I must have been under a rock when that finding was announced.
The new rule sounds surprisingly like the old rule.
Come on, Chick, gimme a break!
Lentulusgracchus, I just don't understand how liberals can reconcile such contradictory views in their heads. Do they operate entirely on feelings? Seriously, I just can't imagine how they think.
Examples:
Animals deserve protection and must be treated humanely because all life is valuable, yet unborn babies only have value if the mother chooses to keep them--otherwise, they can be executed at will.
Animals shouldn't be raised simply to harvest them for their fur, yet unborn babies should be harvested for their tissues, like stem cells.
Cigarettes must be eliminated because smoking causes death and disease, yet practicing sodomy is a basic human right.
The price of gasoline must be kept inexpensive, yet new refineries must NOT be built or new areas explored for oil due to the potential damage to the ecology.
Individual states should have the right to choose whether or not to support gay marriage, yet a woman's right to abort her baby must not be infringed upon by any state!
The federal budget deficit must be eliminated immediately because it threatens the country's well-being, yet for 40 years the deficit wasn't an issue when we were expanding social programs.
When a federal judge rules the ten commandments must be removed from a courthouse, the "law" must be obeyed, yet laws against gay marriage, even ones with overwelming public support, should be ignored.
The Constitutional "wall" separating church and state prohibits any cooperation between them, yet the government has the right to tell church-operated charities to pay for their members' abortions.
I could go on, but I have a headache!
She lost all her innocence
Gave it to an abscess
She lost all her innocence
She said "I am not a feminist"
It's...not...yours...
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