Posted on 03/04/2010 12:02:42 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
BOSTON -- Gay men should be allowed to donate blood and laws banning them from doing so are discriminatory and outdated, according to Sen. John Kerry and several of his Senate colleagues.
"Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” Kerry said. “A law that was once considered medically justified is today simply outdated and needs to end."
Kerry was one of 16 U.S. Senators who in a letter on Thursday asked the Food and Drug Administration to lift the ban on gay men donating blood. The ban was put in place in 1983, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis and before modern screening and advanced testing methods for HIV were developed.
(Excerpt) Read more at thebostonchannel.com ...
Lets pump about a quart of that gay blood into the fruitcake Kerry
I couldn't donate blood because I spent a semester in France in 1984. I felt bad because I'm the universal blood type, but it's better than possibly giving someone the human equivalent of mad cow disease.
Pretty brave talk from a guy who got Purple Hearts for a few scratches!!!
No wonder my country is going to hell in a handbasket with people like this idiot continuing to get elected...What is WRONG with you people in Mass?????????
I'm not a doctor, but isn't the HIV infection rate for gay men still twice the rate that it is for the general population? I believe that gay men account for 1/2 of all the new HIV cases, each year. Isn't that reason enough?
LMAO
And his daughters.
Gay Men’s Blood Still Not Safe Says The FDA
The FDA said HIV tests currently in use are highly accurate, but still cannot detect the virus 100 percent of the time. The estimated HIV risk from a unit of blood is currently about one per 2 million in the United States, according to the agency.
The FDA says that as a group, men who have sex with men (MSM), carry an increased risk of HIV, hepatitis B and other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion. They point out this decision not unique to the United States and quote a European Union directive that also concurs with this policy.
“Men who have had sex with men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence (the total number of cases of a disease that are present in a population at a specific point in time) 60 times higher than the general population, 800 times higher than first time blood donors and 8000 times higher than repeat blood donors.”
A particular area of concern appears to be the “window period” following a recent infection of HIV when there is not enough of the virus in the blood to guarantee its detection.
However, the FDA says that it would only change its policy if there was sufficient scientific evidence, and new tests are not 100 per cent accurate. This follows last year’s FDA Workshop on Behavior-Based Donor Deferrals in the NAT Era, where FDA scientists and blood experts discussed the topic of MSM deferral and the evidence for and against it. (NAT stands for nucleic acid testing, which was approved by the FDA in 2001 for screening blood plasma for HIV and hepatitis C.)
There has been a strong reaction to the renewal of this policy, with many people saying that it discriminates against gay men. The FDA says that the policy is not discriminatory, their view is that MSMs present a high risk group compared to others:
“Scientific evidence has not yet been provided to FDA that shows that blood donated by MSM or a subgroup of these potential donors, is as safe as blood from currently accepted donors,” says the FDA website.
Anyone who’s used intravenous drugs or been paid for sex also is permanently barred from donating blood.
LOL - The local blood bank had an urgent need for blood. My wife and I both worked for the local daily newspaper at the time and were glad to help. My wife has cerebral palsy and walks with crutches. The line got to her and the brilliant ‘blood tech’ decided on the spot that she shouldn’t be able to give blood because she might ‘infect’ others. When we informed them just how ignorant this was they seemed to be in a state of dumbfounded disbelief. They not only missed out on her blood donation but mine as well. Fools. Never again.
I don’t want fag blood even if 100% disease free.
How about Jon being the first recipient of the tainted blood?
>> “Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” Kerry said.
Worse than being anti-science.
Sounds good to me. Unless someone has credible evidence that the Red Cross, et al., do not...?
What’s wrong with this guy’s brain ?
Hepatitis is big in the gay community.
Oh, and global warming is settled science
Yep.
When 2% of the population has 50% of the AIDS cases,that tells me all I need to know about that "lifestyle" deathstyle.
Let Gay Men give blood to Kerry.
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