Posted on 09/13/2011 6:07:36 AM PDT by markomalley
It's an issue that has been discussed - and continues to be discussed.
Last Friday, the UK decided to lift the ban on prohibiting gays from donating blood.
From Times Of India: UK Lifts Ban, Says Gays Can Donate Blood
LONDON: Britain said Thursday it was lifting a ban on gay men giving blood providing they have had not had sexual intercourse within a year.
A lifetime ban on blood donation by gay men was introduced in Britain in the 1980s as a response to the spread of AIDS and HIV.
But a review by a panel of leading experts and patient groups found it could no longer support their exclusion. However, gay men who have had anal or oral sex the past 12 months will still be barred from donating blood, the department of health said.
But then, just four days later, in what could be considered Tragic Irony, there's this from the Daily Mail Online:
Medics Infect 23 Children With HIV After Giving Them Contaminated Blood Transfusions In India
Twenty-three children suffering from a rare genetic disorder have been infected with HIV after receiving tainted blood in western India, it emerged today.
All the children had received free transfusions at a government-run hospital in the Junagadh district of Gujarat state between January and August.
The youngsters, who are all from poor families, all suffer from thalassemia, a genetic disorder that requires regular transfusions.
Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder that causes the body to not produce the correct globulin protein, creating unusable blood and resulting in anaemia.
State government spokesman Jai Narayan Vyas said a team of doctors has been sent to investigate.
How very sad. Tragic. Children and their poor families suffering with one blood disorder now have to deal with a second disease. The source of the infected blood has yet to be determined, but it's more than likely that it came from an HIV-positive donor. It could have come from anybody - perhaps the donor was a homosexual man. Maybe not, but the chances are good. Perhaps better than good.
Bottom line - I think the UK's policy change is terrible. And there are groups in the US clamoring for the same change. Maybe instead of relying on the gays' word that they've kept their privates out of the intestines of another man for at least a year, why not just test their blood prior to donating? In fact, why not do that for everybody? You know, for the children? It's not like the gays will die from being prohibited to donate, will they? Unlike an unwitting patient?
Kimberly Bergalis was the 1st
Well sure they should be able to donate blood. There should be a gay blood bank ... run by gays ... just for gays. I’m sure gays would have no problem accepting donated blood from fellow gays ... or would they?
This is part of the never ending campaign to sell the myth that AIDS is not primarily spread by gay men. An equal opportunity disease, as it were.
According to the CDC figures a few years ago when I did some research to win an argument with a liberal moron reporter at the Tampa Tribune, if you factor out drug use, women who have had sex with gay or bi men (and those women’s partners) and contaminated blood (from guess who?), the disease is almost completely limited to men having sex with men.
Not rocket science. The trace back to the source will always eventually lead to gay sex.
The advocates of doing this with the blood supply are nothing less than murderers.
Didn't she get it from her dentist?
Yes,I was refering to person to person contamination other than intercourse(poorley sterilized hand piece)
Testing is imperfect so policy is all about managing risks to the blood supply. If there's a high risk population it's bad policy to bring them into the pool of donors just because it'd make them feel good.
Is the blood supply so strained the risk level is outweighed by a need to tap into an additional, minuscule, fraction of population? I'd hope not!
I think all happy people should be allowed to give blood. But not homosexuals.
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They don't want AIDS to be a "gay disease". They want to share the misery, it's that simple.
HELL NO THEY SHOULD NOT, they have much more diseases than a normal person as it is
If they were to be properly placed in the high risk pool, your health insurance rates would drop like a rock.
Simple: Scientists say NO, common sense says NO, so the answer is NO! Period.
No.
It will take a few lives to be lost for the supporters of lifting the ban to realize they are wrong. Sad.
I took care of a very nice man dying from HIV.
Wife, 3 kids.
Got 4 units of blood during open heart surgery and was infected.
Life time ban is the only moral choice...
It would be impractical to test blood prior to donating. It takes a few days for all the tests to be done, by which time the tests might very well be obsolete.
Oh that’s easy. They are born that way. There are genetic tests that can show whether someone is homosexual /s
It is amazing how AIDS spread throughout the world in about 10 years.
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