Posted on 12/23/2014 11:05:08 AM PST by reaganaut1
The Food and Drug Administration announced on Tuesday that it would scrap a decades-old lifetime prohibition on blood donation by gay and bisexual men, a change that experts said was long overdue and could lift the annual blood supply by as much as 4 percent.
The F.D.A. enacted the ban in 1983, early in the AIDS epidemic. At the time, little was known about the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes the disease, and there was no quick test to determine whether somebody had it. But science — and the understanding of H.I.V. in particular — has advanced in the intervening decades, and on Tuesday the F.D.A. acknowledged as much, lifting the lifetime ban but keeping in place a more modest block on donations by men who have had sex with other men in the last 12 months.
In a statement, the agency said it had “carefully examined and considered the scientific evidence” before changing the policy. It said it intended to issue a draft guidance detailing the change in 2015.
The shift puts the United States on par with European countries like Britain, which adjusted its lifetime ban in favor of a 12-month restriction in 2011. Men’s health advocates welcomed the move, saying that the ban was not based on the latest science and that it perpetuated stigma about gay men as a risk to the health of the nation. [...]
“This is a major victory for gay civil rights,” said I. Glenn Cohen, a law professor at Harvard University who specializes in bioethics and health. “We’re leaving behind the old view that every gay man is a potential infection source." He said, however, that the policy was “still not rational enough."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I believe the official guideline is 42 days, but there are indications that it is better to use it sooner. However, if it is frozen, it can be used years later. The rest of your comment about emergences is accurate of course. If you can't get your autologous donation when you need it, then you are exposed to the general blood bank supply unless a safe donor is immediately available.
A male homosexual will have many, many more partners in his lifetime. Sometimes thousands. And the more partners a person has the greater the risk of getting STDs and even HIV.
Or people like my sister.
When people ask me why people stop participating in the political process, this is one of the things I would point to.
The government has not only become unresponsive to the electorate, it has become “in your face” antagonistic to them and seems nearly to take joy in going against our wishes.
So the ban on those who spent too much time in Europe in the 80s will also be lifted? No? Why not?
The culture of sodomites is killing this country.
The homo activist groups (and Planned Parenthood along with them) are seeking to overturn the notification laws that require those with AIDS to notify their potential sex partners.
This is a death cult we are dealing with. Public health be damned.
Note to self: give and store own blood before surgeries. No homo stuff for me. Have a Merry Christmas!
If we’re that desperate for a 4% increase in our blood supply, surely a public campaign could generate the increase.
Someone in my family gets aids from a transfusion, I'm going to exercise somebody's right to give blood.
Remember when the Clinton, as governor, had shipped all the aids tainted blood to Canada? caused a scandal up there (possibly a few deaths).
The restriction on giving blood was one big glaring bit of evidence that something is wrong with homosexuality. It’s been target #1 since rational people began pointing out that piece of evidence.
Now the homosexuals have access to your blood supply. That enables them to accomplish another important task...spread AIDS more broadly than the homosexual community. Such a huge share of AIDS belongs to them, so dispersing it among others is another part of their “hide reality” campaign.
This is a two-fer for them. Wonder if I have a right to demand details of any blood received by me or my family?
LOL - “HomoGlobin”
Well, I guess I am changing to “do not resuscitate”
I remember the “early years” of HIV when hemophiliacs were dying in droves due to transfusions from people with HIV - I knew two personally. This is absolutely reckless and people will die ..... for sodomites to insist on being able to do this as a “civil right” shows how intolerant they are of others rights (like a recipient’s right to keeping their own life).
If they do this, “gay” blood should only go to “gay” recipients and they can all have a gay old time with it.
For a pidly 4% increase in the blood supply, 100% of the blood supply will be suspected of containing HIV?
what happens when an “guaranteed not from homosexuals blood industry” is created?
You will have two blood supplies.
Good long-term memory there, longtermmemory!
Absolutely right. Its like the assertion on gay marriage. The idea that the government must license every whim or partnership or else be considered in violation of “civil rights” is a path to absolute lawlessness. Are they going to start taking blood from obvious heroin users too? Homosexual men still have a huge incidence of stds and Aids in comparison to the general population and taking their blood is an unnecessary risk.
There’s another issue as well.
If there’s an uptick of people becoming HIV+ through blood transfusions there’s no way it can be kept quiet. People, their friends and families WILL take to the internet to share their stories.
Once that happens, there’s no way I think that blood banks can avoid liability. And therefore lawsuits.
If I wanted to put the Red Cross out of business, this is how I’d do it.
Hvg a relative die of Hep C after surgery before the rules changed in 1989, it’s another way to kill Americans. Communicable diseases can hide... The Hep C took 15 years to kill my family member. It was like cancer only slower.
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