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 It said it intended to issue a draft guidance detailing the change in 2015.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 ...
It was due to mad cow. Though, I don’t know of a single case in the US.
Always felt bad with all the blood drives in the service. I imagine that they lost a few gallons of O Positive over the years.
Let’s be honest here homosexuals have been donating blood for a long long time, they have just lied on their forms to do it.
t disturbs me is when people consider rights being able to do whatever they want without anyone saying no. That is worse than rights, that is lawlessness. Wonder when they lift the ban on people just for serving in Europe, how many people likely actually have mad cow disease years after the fact?
Exactly. I lived in Europe in the late 80s and am banned for life. I wasn’t anywhere near England nor did we eat meat from England. Sadly I’m not a gay man. I don’t get civil rights and neither do our troops. :(
what dumbsh1ts.
homosexuals don’t and won’t stop having sex for a year to donate blood.
what idiocy. why would any reasonable person believe raving homosexuals, who admit their very lifestyle is all about being able to have sex anytime anywhere, with anyone, when they lie and say they haven’t had sex with other men - none - for 12 months?
and if they lie and say this, but have hiv or aids, will they still be allowed to donate? valid question b/c of the idiocy demonstrated changing this ban.
gay men and women are huge health risks to the nation. nobody else has such high risk for aids and hiv, and rectal prolapse, and hep c, syphillis and other stds.
all blood’is. healthy folks blood is tested. what has changed over the years is that they test for more things than they used to. banning gay blood donations halted hiv/aids leeching into the hetero world and stopped more ryan whites from happening.
yes, ut it alsocis possible for them to not lose yur blood during an operation, but as they suction it away, they run it through a collector/repurifier - like dialysis - and give your own blood back to you. many hospitals can do this.
The Pox Obama
Amazingly stupid - and this is a Harvard Law professor uttering this total nonsense. Regardless of whether or not the ban should have been kept or scrapped, donating blood is not about the donor but about those who will be receiving the blood - "civil rights" one way or the other has nothing to do with this.
I’m no Einstein, so could someone enlighten me as to how 2% of the population can increase the blood supply 4%? Are these “experts” saying these guys are giving blood all the time they aren’t .....?
It doesn’t compute.
nothing the left and media says ever seems to have a factual basis these days
all involved in this decision should have to have the first IV’s of that blood to show there is no concern for safety. Let the first jerkoff raise his/her hand to volunteer to accept the transfusion.....
What’s next, lift the ban on Ebola donors?
Everyone at the FDA from GS9 on up, including ALL his family members, men, women, children and grannies, should be tied to a gurney and be given gay blood. See how calmly and confidently they accept it when it’s their family who is put at risk. That damn law professor, too.
I’ve given my last pint except to relatives and friends.
“F.D.A. Lifting Ban on Gay Blood Donors”
What could possibly go wrong. . .?
The science of why gay blood donors were banned has not changed. The politics of why gay blood donors were banned have changed. It really is that simple.
shhh, it’s supposed to be a secret
Years ago a young boy received tainted blood..
His name was Ryan White and he developed AIDS due to that tainted blood..
When his neighbors found out he had AIDS they burnt down his parents house while Ryan was dying in the hospital..
After several years of suffering Ryan died of AIDS at the age of 16..
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