Posted on 06/19/2010 1:57:56 PM PDT by NYer
OTTAWA, June 18 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A court battle brewing between the Canadian agency in charge of collecting blood donations and an active homosexual could result in a ruling that removes the ban on homosexuals giving blood.
Canada Blood Services (CBS), which collects, screens and ensures the safety of the blood supply, sued homosexual Kyle Freeman last fall after he admitted to lying in the pre-donation screening process and giving blood despite the lifetime ban on men who have sex with men (MSM) giving blood.
The ban was put in place in 1985 after the Canadian Red Cross, in charge of the blood supply at the time, failed to properly screen donors. The result was that thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood.
Freeman has now launched a counter-suit against CBS, saying the ban on MSM giving blood discriminates against homosexuals and he has a right to give blood under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Freeman told the Globe and Mail that he lied on the pre-donation questionnaire in order to help those who needed blood and that the ban made him feel like a second-class citizen.
“It’s 2010,” he said in the G&M report. “It’s saddening to see our government so hell-bent on discriminating against people.”
If the court decides that the CBS policy banning homosexuals from donating blood to protect recipients from tainted blood is in violation of the Charter, the blood agency could be forced to rewrite its rules.
Court rulings on CBS's suit against Freeman and the counter-suit are expected later this summer.
The issue of the ban on homosexuals giving blood was brought into the spotlight recently when 2 Canadian researchers published an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) saying that the ban was "outdated and discriminatory."
Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill University AIDS Centre at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, and Dr. Norbert Gilmore said that the test to detect HIV in the blood has improved since the 1980s when the ban was first introduced. They thought the ban was "hypocritical" because there are very few restrictions on heterosexual donors who may be sexually promiscuous.
However, Ron Vezina, director of media relations at Canadian Blood Services said, "As far as we're concerned, there's no evidence that's been introduced that suggests a change in policy wouldn't introduce incremental risk. We start off with the least risky donors and then we put them through the other processes for safety screening."
Vezina added that Canada has a more than adequate blood supply and there is no need to introduce blood from high-risk donors into the system. "There hasn't been a blood shortage in Canada in recent history," he said.
The U.S. has recently decided to maintain blood-donation rules that forbid practicing homosexuals from donating blood. On June 11, the federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability (ACBSA) voted 9-6 to continue to refuse any prospective blood donor if he is a man who has had sex with another man since 1977, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.
To contact the Canadian blood collection agency with your concerns:
Canadian Blood Services
1800 Alta Vista Drive,
Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 4J5
Phone: (613) 739-2300
Fax: (613) 731-1411
Email: feedback@blood.ca
See related LSN articles:
Researchers Argue Homosexuals Should be Allowed to Give Blood
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10052612.html
U.S. Blood Ban for Gays Remains
Do any States accept blood from Canada in case we get really low?
What exactly is the harm with not being able to give blood?
You can’t get in on that sweet, sweet OJ and cookie action?
As is said and to carry it further declare ones own willingness to have such a transfusion. The bottom line is that the authorities have more than enough reserves of blood from non-homosexuals to use.
Once again these people cried out for the right do what they do,behind closed doors. This was granted.
A sick mentality exists with certain of them. Drunk with their own power in a frightened and politically correct atmosphere. I have no brief against someone getting on with THEIR own lives. Just leave the rest of us alone.
Yeah, I have wondered that, myself- I was also in Europe. I feel bad, but then I can just delete the blood drive emails that come through at work without thinking. I didn't know that was supposed to make me want to sue someone.
I started donating blood during the 80s when they asked for extra donations due to a traffic accident involving a fellow Airman at Barksdale AFB. I dontated reglarly for about 15 years. When I returned from Germany, I learned I could no longer donate due to the risk of CJD (aka “Mad Cow”).
My point is, I understand that there is too much risk involved in using my blood. I don’t feel some inaliable right to put recipients in harms way.
And yes, I miss the cookies.
Canada Blood Services should not be made to accept blood from homosexuals unless they can charge a fee to cover the cost of disposing of biohazard materials. Not that those fees will be very much: they will probably put in Michigan dumps. Jeni Antoinette, the gift that keeps on giving.
Why not allow people with HIV, Hep-C, etc. to donate blood. However, that blood could only be transfused into people who were ALREADY INFECTED with HIV, Hep-C, etc. It would have the additional advantage of increasing the supply of uncontaminated blood for uncontaminated people. We already classify blood for type [A, B, AB, O] and Rh, so this would just be another sub-classification.
You want to put infected blood into the system? Screw ups happen. Even if you clearly marked the packaging, I see a tragedy waiting to happen. Add in government run health care and it would be like playing russian roulette with a 1911.
Ditto...screwups happen all of the time!!
Secondly, that’s a bio-hazard...you don’t want that infected stuff just laying around...
Ping.
onwards! rump wranglers!
FINE! Let them donate and just incinerate it.
Thanks for the ping, fanfan
Bloodhounds ping
Donating blood isn’t a right.
You do have a good point, especially with the government wanting to run healthcare. Even with over two hundred years of previous experience, they often deliver mail to the wrong address.
Thanks for the ping!
As outrageous as that sounds, that is exactly their motive. They want AIDS to be "everyone's problem" as they frequently advertise, so that more research funding for a cure will be supplied by taxpayers, and so that they can salve what consciences they have left with the idea that normal people are also infected. Anything to avoid culpability.
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