Blood Donor Ban On Gays Lifted.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....-havent-sex-year.html

Is this a wise move, or just a ridiculous decision due to the fact that it is up to the honesty of the donor to state they have not had sex for a year?

[Gromit]

If I was dying and I needed blood it wouldn't bother me too much.

Apparently you cannot catch gayness this way.

[mike11111]

It is due to the honesty of the donor to admit that he is gay in the first place, so your question holds no water, apart from the fact that you keep choosing snippets from the Daily Mail which support your prejudices and post them in the vain hope that people will agree with you. Best of luck.

[EvianBaby]

It's already up to the honesty of the donor. A gay man could very easily claim to be straight in order to donate blood.

[anotheoldgit]

mike11111

Please do not lie and accuse me of choosing snippets from the Daily Mail which support my prejudices and posting them in the vain hope that people will agree with me.

Where in this post have I shown any prejudices?

By the very question I have asked for responses from both sides of the argument.

i.e. "Is this a wise move, or just a ridiculous decision"

I have the freedom of choice, the same as everyone to choose "snippets" (as you put it) from any source I choose.

I am not in the least bothered whether you or anyone else agrees with me or not, I just enter what I consider controversial subjects that are likely to foster long and interesting debate.

[bradcashman38]

I would say it depends on the situation. There must be a proper medical check up before every blood donation. In presence of a proper medical check up, it does not matter if the donor is a gay or straight.

[Kromovaracun]

It's a fairly lukewarm decision as it doesn't really tackle what was irrational about the ban in the first place.

If you had unprotected anal/oral sex with another man a year ago and (say) contracted HIV, it won't have gone away (even if for the moment it's dormant or undetected), but you can give blood. If you had protected anal/oral sex with a man last week then the chances of you having HIV are pretty slim, but you still won't be allowed to give blood.

Personally, I'm not sure the new system addresses the problem particularly well at all.

[Kromovaracun]

"If you had unprotected anal/oral sex with another man a year ago and (say) contracted HIV, it won't have gone away (even if for the moment it's dormant or undetected), but you can give blood"

[as someone who has given blood, I just realised this actually isn't quite true - I seem to remember having my blood tested (and assuming it was for HIV) before I did it, and if you came up positive on that test then obviously you wouldn't be able to. Hope ABers will catch my meaning anyway with this correction in mind.]

[EvianBaby]

Bradcashman - What sort of medical check up? I would think anything more than the simple questionaire they use currently would cost an extrordinary amount of money that the service simply does not have.

[MrsLeeG]

Gay or straight it makes no difference, as long as the blood is screened before use what difference does it make. Anyone who is in a critical enough state to require a transfusion wont be caring as long as its a match! Its a silly outdated rule and I for one am glad its been lifted. There is a massive shortage in blood donors and people should not be precluded due to their sexuality.

[EvianBaby]

Kromo - do you mean the finger prick test they do before you have the donation?

If so, no that is not a test for any disease at all. I believe (might be wrong) that is to test blood sugar levels.

[Kromovaracun]

"If so, no that is not a test for any disease at all. I believe (might be wrong) that is to test blood sugar levels. "

That sounds more reasonable. Truth be told, it was just an assumption on my part - the idea of having an HIV test done that quickly is in retrospect pretty silly :P

[EvianBaby]

Well if you didn't know what it was for it's fair to assume they might be testing for something specific. But this is just a very basic test that every single donor has before the donation.

[EvianBaby]

It will annoy me if I don't correct myself but I've just realised the finger prick is actually to test the iron in your blood. (hope I'm not wrong this time)

[rov1100]

The problem as I see it is that if the homosexual has had a sexual disease in the past within the blood there will be antibodies that have tried to fight the disease.

If the blood is transfused into a patient won't it mean their blood will now contain the antibodies. Not a problem until maybe sometime in the future a sample will be taken to show of his past infections.

[Brenden]

Rov I understand you point and agree but there are so many STI now in the straight community that is appears to be six of one and half a dozen of the other.

[JonnyBoy12]

I am so glad to hear that as they have been banned for years. I also understand that they can adopt children now as well. Well, there is no excuse not to give blood now. Do not say that you are scared of needles as that does not hurt very much at all.

www.blood.co.uk

[rowanwitch]

blood is stored until the results of testing come back confirming it is safe to use...

[rockyracoon]

I could never understand why they were banned in the first place, the HIV/AIDS excuse holds no water, many hetros contracted it. If blood is screened correctly then there should be no problem. I would much rather have blood from a gay monogamous man than a hetro that's had unprotected sex with many.

[Bambiagain]

When you give blood, samples are also taken into test tubes and tested for various conditions, including HIV. But I believe that HIV can lie dormant and test as negative for a period after contracting it, hence the ruling that gay man will not be able to give blood until a year after they last had sex. However, as has been said before, if a man has had sex with another man recently using a condom, then the risk is greatly reduced, whereas the new rules allow a man who has had unprotected sex - which obviously carries more risk - in the past to give blood.


In my opinion is is perfectly easy for anyone to lie on the questionnaire - perhaps they may do so because they genuinely believe they do not pose a risk. And a person not in possession of the full facts (e.g. a heterosexual woman who doesn't know about her partner's past or his current infidelities) could possibly quite innocently fail to meet the standards required. So I see no problem with gay men giving blood as long as they tell the truth as far as they are able, and I doubt if they are any more likely to tell lies than heterosexual donors.

As a heterosexual woman, I can't give blood in Germany (having done so for many years in the UK) because of the perceived risk of BSE. By German standards, anyone giving blood in the UK should be banned from doing so!

[andy-hughes]

AOG - it is wrong of you state that mike 11111 is lying - because you have no proof or evidence that he is doing so.

The truth, based on fact, can still conveyed as an untruth, provided that ther person conveying it believes it to be true.

Example - if I say to you that the earth is flat, that is not true - fact. However, if i believe it to be true, then I am not lying, I am simply advising a fact as I understand it, even though it is not in fact correct.

On a more flimsy area of pedantry - if mike believes that you are 'choosing snippets', then that is the truth as he see it, and therefore he is not lying - and since it is not a provable fact, you can only dispute the veracity of his statement.

What you cannot do, is decide that he is deliberately peddling an untruth, which you do by referring to him as a 'liar'.

This is a fine distinction - but an important one - and you should consider your post and offer mike an apology.