Posted on 03/04/2010 1:03:16 PM PST by LouAvul
The time has come to change a policy that imposes a lifetime ban on donating blood for any man who has had gay sex since 1977, 18 senators said Thursday. "Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who joined 16 other Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in writing Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.
The lawmakers stressed that the science has changed dramatically since the ban was established in 1983 at the advent of the HIV-AIDS crisis. Today donated blood must undergo two different, highly accurate tests that make the risk of tainted blood entering the blood supply virtually zero, they said.
The senators said that while hospitals and emergency rooms are in urgent need of blood products, "healthy blood donors are turned away every day due to an antiquated policy and our blood supply is not necessarily any safer for it."
Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign,the nation's largest gay rights group, said they are hopeful that the policy, last reviewed in 2006, will change under President Barack Obama, "who is interested in looking at all the policies that have a discriminatory effect." The goal, he said, is "to have policies in place that are based on the science" rather than "any discriminatory idea about our community."
(Excerpt) Read more at wjla.com ...
Let them give blood to each other.
Now, feel good PCism trumpts a safe blood supply for the nation?
The “everything must be fair” police strike again.
Mad cow is the ostensible reason, even though no one has ever got mad cow from a blood donation.
I suspect the Euro-livers ban was put in place to appease the gay lobby. "See, we banned donations from folks who may have been exposed to mad cow as well."
I used to be a regular donor of a fairly rare blood type. No more.
I bet even if the gays can give, I'll still be banned.
Virtually zero is NOT ZERO. Not at all surprising that Kerry and his funny little friends want to kill somebody!
LET’S LET THE GOOD SENATORS HAVE IT ALL. I WILL HAVE MY BLOOD STRAIGHT, THANK YOU.
I actually agree with lurch only in that if you lift the ban we probably will be able to identify more HIV carriers who test positive and maybe lower the risk of passing this faggot curse to fewer persons
Kerry can have the banking queen’s blood anytime.
Please do......
This reminds me of the scene from Erin Brockovich where she offers the high strung attorney a glass of water that’s SUPPOSED to be perfectly safe, but the attorney won’t touch it.
As long is there is a chance, any chance in he*l, I don’t want that blood no matter how safe it’s supposed to be..
If anybody still has any doubts that the elitists are trying to substantially reduce the human population, I present exhibit #1,582.
"The news today is that a group of 17 US Senators say that it's OK to remove the ban on blood given by homosexuals because, supposedly, there's VIRTUALLY NO RISK.
That's what they were quoted as saying.
Hey, VIRTUALLY still isn't ZERO. I don't wanna' die from tainted blood. We're already going through this with a family member who got Heptatitis C with tainted blood.
It's not surprising to me that John Kerry wants to kill someone else anonymously, but frankly, the rest of the Senate get enough chances to kill without the old "we didn't know it was tainted" blood deal.
Enough is enough.
Tell John to stick it in his veins, not ours."
I deleted anything offensive ~ plenty of that ~ could put it back in but Warner wouldn't read it.
And how will they feel about this when their children need a transfusion and gets aids cause of some homosexuals immoral behavior?
I'm all for gays giving blood -- to a bank dedicated to U.S. Senators, active and retired.
There is a period of time between infection and a positive antibody test where a donor can infect another person without testing positive. A sensible policy would, at a minimum, require that a potential male donor not have had sex with another man for the last twelve months.
You are excluded if you have had heterosexual sex with a prostitute in the previous twelve months for the same reason.
So, if everybody told the truth, the “since 1977” exclusion is probably more than you need to ensure a safe blood supply, because if anybody was infected more than a year ago, an effective screening test exists. Of course, one could make the argument that people who have had homosexual sex since 1977 are more likely to have had homosexual sex within the last twelve months, so it still makes sense to exclude them.
You don’t want people overthinking it. You don’t want them saying, “Well, I only had sex with so-and-so in the last twelve months, and I know that he’s clean, so I’m OK to donate”, because that is assuming things one cannot know for sure. The “since 1977” exclusion is just erring on the side of caution.
I’ll stop giving blood and convert to the JW’s...
“Senators: Lift ban on gays donating blood”
Open.
Biological.
Warfare.
How many Toyota’s over how many miles and how many non operator error accidents? How much time has our congress spent on that topic?
A blood bank technician error and you are stuck with a used needle?
I’m okay with this as long as their blood can only be given to other queers.
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