plekhanov Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 To those who say all homosexuals should be excluded from donating on grounds of "risk" I've a question for you, who would you say is more of a risk as a blood donor? A gay man who has not had sex for 13 months A sexually active heterosexual who had sex last month The homosexual could have contracted HIV 13 months ago and screening technology is apparently now good enough to give an extremely high likelihood of catching an infection more than a year old. Prof Deirdre Kelly said "the risk from a 12-month deferral was equivalent to permanent deferral" so "the evidence does not support the maintenance of a permanent ban". The heterosexual could easily have contracted HIV last month, or the month before that, or the month before that... screening is apparently less effective for HIV contracted within the last year. If anything it would seem that the gay donor poses less of a risk of HIV infected blood getting through as even though he has a statistically higher chance of having HIV the 12 month waiting period means that any infection the heterosexual donor has is less likely to be caught. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hard2miss Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 To those who say all homosexuals should be excluded from donating on grounds of "risk" I've a question for you, who would you say is more of a risk as a blood donor? A gay man who has not had sex for 13 months A sexually active heterosexual who had sex last month The homosexual could have contracted HIV 13 months ago and screening technology is apparently now good enough to give an extremely high likelihood of catching an infection more than a year old. Prof Deirdre Kelly said "the risk from a 12-month deferral was equivalent to permanent deferral" so "the evidence does not support the maintenance of a permanent ban". The heterosexual could easily have contracted HIV last month, or the month before that, or the month before that... screening is apparently less effective for HIV contracted within the last year. If anything it would seem that the gay donor poses less of a risk of HIV infected blood getting through as even though he has a statistically higher chance of having HIV the 12 month waiting period means that any infection the heterosexual donor has is less likely to be caught. Im not sure you can compare the two. If you say they both have sex to even it up then given that a higher proportion of people in the male gay community have aids then the answer is obvious. Also because you are talking about the gay community and it being a minority then you would think that the odds in contact with someone else in that community is higher than say an heterosexual person because the pool is far bigger so to speak. Now saying that the gay man is not having sex and your saying the other bloke is then your question is biased but not necessarily still tipped towards the heterosexual bloke being more risk, a lot of number crunching more would have to go on I would have thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hard2miss Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 *Non-active = Not sexually active in the past 12 months.A great deal of faith is on someone being honest or even having recollection of the act at the time of filling out the forms. What the percentages to do with gay vs hetro male when it comes to one night stands for instance ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hard2miss Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Interestingly you cannot donate blood in the USA as it is deemed it to risky for the person potentially receiving your blood.That's the thing, you can get one attitude and research results to suggest one thing in one country and totally opposite in another, so who is right and can you afford not to be right if its peoples lives ? What do we do, allow gay men to give blood and then find out that there is a slight rise in cross infections ? Do we accept the added risk for the little benefit that we would get from having the gay minority give blood, or do we back track, if even possible once Pandora's box is open, and admit it was a wrong move and have gay people alienated further and having to pay out the compensation claims for poor policy ? Tough one isn't it, that's why I think keeping it as it is should be the safest option Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFKvsNixon Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 That's the thing, you can get one attitude and research results to suggest one thing in one country and totally opposite in another, so who is right and can you afford not to be right if its peoples lives ? What do we do, allow gay men to give blood and then find out that there is a slight rise in cross infections ? Do we accept the added risk for the little benefit that we would get from having the gay minority give blood, or do we back track, if even possible once Pandora's box is open, and admit it was a wrong move and have gay people alienated further and having to pay out the compensation claims for poor policy ? Tough one isn't it, that's why I think keeping it as it is should be the safest option Keeping things as they are isn't the safest option, as we're turning away much needed blood that is perfectly safe to transfuse. We obviously need to manage the risk, and the 12 month rule manages the risk perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hard2miss Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Keeping things as they are isn't the safest option, as we're turning away much needed blood that is perfectly safe to transfuse. We obviously need to manage the risk, and the 12 month rule manages the risk perfectly.Well I know there's demand, lets just hope your right and it is managed right because no one can afford the bad publicity that getting it wrong would bring, let alone those that wold have to live with it. A trial run would be the next best thing but that wont happen, it will be all or nothing and no turning back, even if it goes pear shaped. The percentage of people getting the disease does not want to go up as a result because it would suggest the risk was not worth it, especially if you caught it because no one is ever going to convince you that it was not down to the homosexual donater. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFKvsNixon Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Well I know there's demand, lets just hope your right and it is managed right because no one can afford the bad publicity that getting it wrong would bring, let alone those that wold have to live with it. A trial run would be the next best thing but that wont happen, it will be all or nothing and no turning back, even if it goes pear shaped. The percentage of people getting the disease does not want to go up as a result because it would suggest the risk was not worth it, especially if you caught it because no one is ever going to convince you that it was not down to the homosexual donater. Every individual bag of blood product transfused can be traced back to the individual donor, so the problem in your scenario does not exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harleyman Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Interestingly you cannot donate blood in the USA as it is deemed it to risky for the person potentially receiving your blood. Oh yes you can donate blood in the USA. My wife's blood group is O Negative which is rare and even though she hasn't donated for about three years she still gets on average one call a week from the American Red Cross Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plekhanov Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Im not sure you can compare the two. If you say they both have sex to even it up then given that a higher proportion of people in the male gay community have aids then the answer is obvious. Also because you are talking about the gay community and it being a minority then you would think that the odds in contact with someone else in that community is higher than say an heterosexual person because the pool is far bigger so to speak. Now saying that the gay man is not having sex and your saying the other bloke is then your question is biased but not necessarily still tipped towards the heterosexual bloke being more risk, a lot of number crunching more would have to go on I would have thought. Did you even read the article which describes the policy change that you are objecting to? Contrary to your asinine objection "saying that the gay man is not having sex and your saying the other bloke is then your question is" not "biased" because the policy is that only gay men who have not had sex for 12 months are permitted to donate. My "biased" hypothetical scenario is based upon the situation created by the new policy. A policy under which sexually active heterosexuals who could have contracted HIV much less than 12 months ago are able to donate whereas homosexuals must be abstinent for 12 months so a HIV infection in a gay man is far more likely to be caught by the screening tests. So you've had the policy you are attempting to debate explained to you, I put my question to you again: To those who say all homosexuals should be excluded from donating on grounds of "risk" I've a question for you, who would you say is more of a risk as a blood donor? A gay man who has not had sex for 13 months A sexually active heterosexual who had sex last month Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFKvsNixon Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Oh yes you can donate blood in the USA. My wife's blood group is O Negative which is rare and even though she hasn't donated for about three years she still gets on average one call a week from the American Red Cross You're not allowed to donate blood in the USA if you've lived for longer than three months in the UK between 1980 and 1997. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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