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 It said it intended to issue a draft guidance detailing the change in 2015.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 ...
A local shortage is bad when you are the guy in the ER or OR.
However, this presents a great opportunity for churches and other groups of straight people to give blood to offset the gay blood donations.
was moaning about his hurt feewings re: the gay blood ban.
This person was going to be responsible for medical safety - presumably - upon graduation!
The mind boggles.
This new rule will only account for a 1% increase in blood donations.
However, as the rules are today, what prevents a gay man from donating blood?
I am so glad I tested my wife and found we share the same blood type. Makes things much safer if the homos succeed in tainting the blood supply.
More like the United States is becoming closer to Jonestown, where people had to either partake of the suicide or get murdered. I call it mass suicide cult.
Outward symptoms of undiagnosed HIV take multiple years to show, and also the screening process is not perfect. I am not sure what they are going to tell you now, but last year when I tried to donate blood, but can’t because my blood pressure is chronically too high, that you should NEVER use donating blood as a diagnostic to screen yourself for blood borne diseases, because the screening can read a false negative.
Good point, it seems now like you need to get a signing on of some kind of private business to take care of donated blood now.
It’s not fair that gays and drug users should keep AIDS away from everyone else.
Last I read from a CDC reprot, homos make up over 65% of new hepatitis cases, and they sure as heck are not all needle users. Really shut up some homo that was trying to argue that their diseases were no more common than heterosexual's when I brought that up. He did not want to go to where and what they did to contract the disease on a public forum.
The only thing that prevents a homosexual man from donating blood is honesty. Anyone can lie on the questions that they give you before drawing your blood. Also, like I said earlier, the screening isn’t flawless, and it can read false negatives, so it isn’t risk free of transmission by screening alone.
“are seeking to overturn the notification laws that require those with AIDS to notify their potential sex partners.”
not notifying them should be a felony
When challenged, I say: “I’m not homophobic, I’m hepatophobic.”
“This is a major victory for gay civil rights,”
There, in black and white, is proof that liberalism is a mental illness.
“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.”
Follow what God says, have sex with only your husband/wife and you’ll be okay. At least as far as that goes,
As far as gays giving blood, we’re screwed.
Didn’t the FDA panel just refuse to discuss lifting the ban earlier this month?
Hah, the lawmakers will be all over this, and hospitals too. Until a tainted patch sneaks through and a thousand innocent New Yorkers end up with AIDS. Yea, then all those blood banks, hospitals and medical laboratories will be clamoring to repeal, idiots.
There is not a real doctor on Earth that will tell you in private straight to your face “Gay men do not spread AIDS.”
AIDS is a disease, not a civil rights champion. How sick the left is. The left wants to give innocent people suffering in the hospital AIDS.
“Follow what God says, have sex with only your husband/wife and you’ll be okay. At least as far as that goes”
It becomes ever so more clear that at the very least, someone saw ahead of their time with that principle. I believe it was God, but for those who don’t then at least accept that somebody developed a reasonable level of sense in them and learned from somebody else’s mistakes.
Yes, I see the HUGE MASSIVE LINE of gay men who have been rejected... At most, it'd be a couple extra pints a week (excluding the 'sudden rush' that will happen so that everyone can proudly proclaim they can finally donate blood.)
Dude. I cannot donate plasma because I had to go to alcohol courses 10 years ago, and have been for the most part sober for like 8. They said “Nope” you told us back in XXXX you weren’t in alcohol treatment (they didn’t ask, I would have answered yes, they changed the questions. He said they always asked it). Told I can prove I am clean from drugs and alcohol with character witnesses screens/counselors/etc , and am donating for a little supplementary income. Nothing I can do to donate plasma ever again in my life, and I have never used IV drugs, or had fag sex, been in Europe, etc. But a gay man can? Preposterous I say. A total farce. A scheme to spread “the gift” to the population. Sick.
I respect your comment.
I stopped by the Red Cross Donation center by my office about an hour an and informed them that as a long time blood donor, I will no longer be making donations due to this decision.
Some may not like my approach, but I felt the need to make a statement to them today.
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