heh heh heh
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 It said it intended to issue a draft guidance detailing the change in 2015.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 ...
Of course, we already do. But no test is absolutely certain. 2003 and 2010 saw at least two cases were HIV was transmitted to blood recipients even WITH testing. Additionally, administrative error is always possible, accidentally allowing infected blood into the supply. The added layer of a deferral through screening is well justified.
This is not a static equation. As gay men now rush to donate by the thousands when they couldn't before, the risk increases exponentially of an error or a faulty reading. And, the ones that are now livid that the ban was not lifted completely will likely donate anyway and lie about their sexual activity in protest.
Basically, the incidents of identifying infected blood are going to skyrocket. And some of these WILL slip through the cracks.
Sheesh...this country's getting hacked at from every side! You must pay for Insurance and now risk gays givng tainted blood!
They won’t test it.
They don’t even test it for chagas disease because that would be racist.
Obama loves homosexuals because he is one.
If they could prove there is no chance of people getting AIDS from blood from gay donors, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
But they can’t do that, can they?
Mad cow would have killed us both by now if we would have gotten it. But we still cant donate. They are idiots.
3 decades of AB- donations that would have come from me. Cie la vie.
I also have pederastomisia
heh heh heh
God help us all. I hope no one in my family is going to need a transfusion.
Anyone with any sense, especially in this homosexual-obsessed society will keep a supply of their own blood to use in an emergency.
hardly a day goes by where Obama doesn’t do something to help his fellow butt buddies out!
of course every homosexuals man is a threat to safety .
Doing what they do sexually is common sense that they are risking disease because of how they want their sex and can’t control themselves.
The left cares noting about innocents dying.
I don’t want that blood and its diseases.
it is the 21st century. Where’s the damn synthetic blood! It is insane to use donated blood from others. Even more insane to play a game of Russian roulette with people’s health.
>> Giving blood is not a civil right.
Neither is sodomy.
“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.”
Scouts honor?
Pray tell...how do you do that?
I'm a regular blood donor-in fact, I'm a member of The Gallon Club-so I'm familiar with all of the restrictions, a lot of them simply targeting people who travel abroad pretty frequently, i.e. not directly related to blood-born illnesses or diseases.
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