Posted on 03/13/2005 3:16:21 PM PST by Clint N. Suhks
I AM writing in response to a Sunday News editorial, "Education lacking: UNH Senate AIDS issue shows it," that was published Feb. 27. As the author of the UNH Senate Resolution that the editorial referred to, I feel obligated to respond and clear up some of the apparent confusion among the editorial staff.
The current FDA regulation banning any man who has had sex with another man at any time since 1977 from donating blood were instituted in the early 1980s as a precaution against the spread of the HIV virus and AIDS through the blood supply. It was the correct decision at the time. In the climate of fear and uncertainty about this deadly infection, the authorities had no other choice but to err on the side of safety.
Today, however, the scientific knowledge and understanding of HIV and how it spreads has advanced. The FDA policy of banning sexually active gay men for life from donating blood is not backed up by science. There is no scientific, medical or ethical justification for the ban.
What once seemed like a necessary precaution has become a discriminatory practice perpetuating the bigotry and prejudice that sexually active gay men are somehow a danger and a threat to the rest of society. Add to this that it is medically counterproductive at a time when the country is facing increasing threats from blood shortages.
Contrary to what was stated in the editorial, the Red Cross is the only major blood donation organization to oppose any change in the FDA policy. In fact, the largest blood donation organization in the country, America's Blood Centers, as well as the American Association of Blood Banks, support changing the current policy. With today's effective screening procedures of blood donors and testing of all donated blood, every major blood donor organization in the country, except for the Red Cross, supports a change in policy to a one-year deferral as opposed to a lifetime ban, and some scientists advocate for a two-week deferral for male homosexual blood donors.
FDA statistics estimate that approximately 10 units of tainted blood slip through the blood banks each year, potentially infecting one to two people per year. If the FDA changed its policy to a one-year deferral on men who have had sex with another man since 1977, the FDA predicts that over 62,300 more men would donate blood, while an additional three units of tainted blood would slip through the blood supply.
If 10 units of blood potentially infects one to two people per year, then 13 units would potentially infect one to three people, while over 176,000 more people would potentially be protected from the dangers of blood shortages.
If the FDA truly wanted the safest blood supply possible, it would require all donors to be asked about safe sex practices. The real high risk factor for contracting HIV, gay or straight, is unsafe sex.
Being gay and having safe homosexual sex does not put you at any more risk of HIV than being straight and having safe heterosexual sex. With the current policy, a straight man can have unsafe sex with dozens of women and still donate blood, while a gay man who has had sex with a monogamous partner just once in the past 28 years can never give blood.
The Student Senate of the University of New Hampshire supports scientifically based filters on blood donation to make the blood banks as safe as possible, while eliminating practices that are discriminatory and counterproductive.
The editorial accused me of pushing a gay agenda. Even though this issue does affect gay people, it is an issue of fundamental civil rights and sensible health policies. That is not a gay agenda but an American agenda. It is for everyone who needed blood but couldn't get it because the Red Cross supports turning away thousands of perfectly healthy donors at their doors just because the donors have engaged in gay sex.
If you want on/off the ping list see my profile page.
I am not allowed to give blood because I have had cancer. I find such a decision to simply make sense. Why take a chance with other peoples lives?
I think the civil right involved in keeping homosexuals from giving blood is the right to be protected from the prime carriers of a horrid disease.
Ok, then let us appeal to common sense.
Let homosexuals set up a homosexual blood bank for homosexuals only -I won't mind...
I recall a Star Trek: TNG episode that dealt with this issue. A Romulan was on board that needed a rare blood donor, and Worf was the only one on board who could give it to him, but the Romulan looked at it as if his blood would be poisonous to him (which it wasn't). If memory serves, anyways. I think this was around 94, however. What we want someone who had leprosy o give blood, or syphillus, or the black plague?
Yes, and let's let gay pedophile's be boy scout leaders while we're at it.
I don't donate blood because I have some chronic genetic or other condition that causes elevated bilirubin. I could donate blood, since this is not listed as a preclusion, but I'm smart enough to not do it because nobody knows why my blood is this way.
What ever happend to accepting what's best for others?
Fortunately, only true believers of the hard left will take this seriously.
Congressman Billybob
I couldn't have said it any better. No frickin' way. I'm sick now after reading this. Ya know, I never gave it any thought of ever needing donated blood due to an accident, medical emergency, or whatever. But I sure hope like hell should I ever need some that that stuff is clearly marked "Made in Hetero USA"
Today, however, the scientific knowledge and understanding of HIV and how it spreads has advanced. The FDA policy of banning sexually active gay men for life from donating blood is not backed up by science. There is no scientific, medical or ethical justification for the ban.
Totally untrue. I have worked with a major blood donation "entity" and this entire paragraph is just false. Look up any blood donation site's rules and they are very clear that active gays are at much greater risk of transmitting HIV....the scientific evidence is eeverywhere you care to look and blood centers are proper in refusing their donations.
This joker's way behind the power curve.
The ultimate in bitchy queers wilfully and in cold blood donated scores, probably hundreds of thousands of blood units back in the early days of HIV/AIDS for the single cynical purpose of infecting as wide a cross-section of the population as possible in order to avoid the quarantine and isolation that should have occurred at the outset of the disease one cannot catch but must permit someone to give one -- and which quarantine and isolation it is not to late to instigate, Right Now!
Fine. I want mandatory registration of all homosexuals and tracking of their activities and all their partners.
Violating any terms of registration may result in prison time or physical castration due to the risk presented to the general populace.
Fair trade? If not, then STFU.
"This joker's way behind the power curve."
The joker knows it only too well.
That is exactly why he wrote it.
He is trying to get his buddies and buddettes to get with the program of injecting themselves into our society.
He wants to BE the 'power curve'.
<< The joker knows it only too well.
That is exactly why he wrote it.
He is trying to get his buddies and buddettes to get with the program of injecting themselves into our society.
He wants to BE the 'power curve'. >>
But wouldn't that mean that he and they were but the manifestation of evil?
</rhetorical questions>
The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, or so it goes.
I have been deferred by the Red Cross from donating blood for close to 2 years now. I have recieved three human bone grafts and they defer you for 12 months after the last graft. I find that restriction reasonable. I wouldn't want to donate blood with a chance of it harming the recipient, despite the chances of that being extremely low.
How selfish it would be to donate blood knowing that one had engaged in high-risk activities for blood-borne illnesses!
Nope can't have that either, then one gay gets AIDS that way, and they will say they all did, and our cause is lost. No blood donating for gays PERIOD!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.