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.
Easy peasy! Allow fairies to give (sell?) blood but allow it to be used only for other fairies. This should do even more to spread the ultimate cure for faggitude. Don't articles like this have to include a paragraph emphsizing that AIDS is spread by toilet seats and dirty needles and "allegedly," sexual contact?
Since October 2001 no one who has spent 6 months or more in Europe since January 1, 1980, can give blood, because of the fear of mad cow disease. I don't know if they have a single case of anyone in the U.S. contracting mad cow disease from a blood transfusion from someone who had spent time in Europe...or of anyone coming down with mad cow disease whose only risk factor was having spent time in Europe in the 1980s. It would be much safer to allow people from this category to donate blood than to accept blood donations from male homosexuals.
The reality is that anybody engaging in anal sex should not be allowed to give blood... that's why so many women are being infected with Hiv, as well as gay men... it is a much riskier form of sex
Since when is donating blood a civil right?
Thanks for the ping (I think!)
"But wouldn't that mean that he and they were but the manifestation of evil?"
Yes. But we are less sensitive to evil in the world.
There is so much evil we are shutting down so we can somehow make sense of our daily lives.
The young man writing the posted article is in real pain.
He is trying to justify his existence by challenging our right to healthy lives.
He is influenced by his destructive life-style.
He wants to make everyone who does not share his demon; suffer for not wanting to share the illness of homosexuality.
I think we should have the right to know if the blood came from such a source, what happens to your body including what gets put into it should require a release form from you or someone with legal authority to make that decision before it happens. Its just my opinion.
Sure. Lets spend $50 billion a year screening Hepatitis and AIDS out of the blood supply for no reason. /sarcasm
Medical personnel didn't start wearing gloves until the AIDS explosion
What a nonsense response.
Sometimes the truth hurts. Suck it up.
But they want us to get the horrid diseases, don't you see?
Hey, it's only 3 people a year. It not like everyone will get sick and die. /gagging
Is this sick SOB serious? So what if only 3 people get sick and die from their sick perverted activities? If their perversion wasn't bad enough, this really shows how twisted they are.
Yuck.
What smokey said. . .
Thanks, I think.
Gloves have always been available for use, but it was mostly up to the individual if they wore them or not.
After the AIDS discovery, it became mandatory that gloves be worn when there is ANY contact or potential contact with any bodily fluid.
<< But wouldn't that mean that he and they were but the manifestation of evil?
</rhetorical questions> >>
You may have missed the << </rhetorical questions> >>
part of my ironic/sarcastic post.
Insofar as the rest of your post, to whit:
<< Yes. But we are less sensitive to evil in the world.
There is so much evil we are shutting down so we can somehow make sense of our daily lives.
The young man writing the posted article is in real pain.
He is trying to justify his existence by challenging our right to healthy lives.
He is influenced by his destructive life-style.
He wants to make everyone who does not share his demon; suffer for not wanting to share the illness of homosexuality. >>
Is concerned, though, I would say that -- except that I take evil very very very seriously indeed and am extremely sensitive to it -- you and I are reading from the same place on the same page of the same Book.
Blessing B A
It always sounds like there's a blood shortage when my local blood bank calls me up to ask for a donation.
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