Canadian Blood Services continuing gay ban

The whole ban should never have been put in place >_> What's more, the amount of screening they do on blood is intense. So it's basically completely 100% bullshit.

 

Does anyone know any of the statistics on this? I find it hard to believe this decision was simply prejudice.

 

The Toronto Sun is not a real newspaper.

 

Haha! Well after the Liberal Party had the political columnist from the Toronto Star fired... I dunno which to read anymore!

 

They shouldn't turn down blood and at the same time play ads saying: "blood, it's in you to give."

As far as I'm concerned, if they don't want my blood, I don't care. I have no intentions to give it. As a matter of fact ill go cut myself and pour blood in a storm drain. And they better not say I'm wasting the valuable resource considering they didn't want it in the first place.

 

Some background:

 

It does shock me that in Canada this is still the way it is.

I understand why it was originally put in place. Back then little was known about Hiv and Aids and with the majority of those it spread to being among the gay community it does make sense. Especially when according to the post above they didn't screen for it back then.

However things have changed since the 70's. A lot more is known about Hiv and Aids and they now screen for it. So honestly what is the point of excluding gay men that practice safe sex from donating much needed blood?

 

Politics.

If gays were allowed to give blood then all it would take is for just one case of contamination resulting in someone's illness to reignite the tainted blood political firestorm of yore.

The government o' the day would pay a severe price--and so would the LGBT community's drive for greater acceptance as homophobic politicians everywhere pounced on said case.

Weighed against this potential liability we have what? The marginal amount of blood which could be collected from a miniscule percentage of the population?

It's not worth it IMO.

 

it's the same in Australia, dude.

 

It is slightly different in Australia. It isn't a lifetime ban but a ban for 12 months from the time of the sexual contact. Still bad but not as bad.
The reason i was shocked by the fact it is Canada was that i had the opinion that GLBT rights were rather advanced in Canada compared to most countries (including Australia).

 

12 months is incredible. Canada wants 34 years!

 

Err where do you get 34 years? It's a lifetime ban dude >_>

 

I personally can't stand that this has been made a gay rights issue.

Canadian Blood Services has the single responsibility of obtaining and providing blood products as safely as possible. I really don't think that CBS is out to get gays in any way or deprive gays of things.

Even though they produce a lot of advertisements, the blood services never really run out of blood. I mean, I've never heard of someone sitting in hospital dying because they can't get a transfusion. The patient at the receiving end comes first, always.

The prevalence of HIV among gay men is a lot higher than the prevalence of HIV among straight men. There are more cases of HIV among straight men just because there are more of them but the chances that a gay guy walking through the door of a blood donor clinic having HIV are much higher than the chances that a straight man will have it. I have been to some cities where it is estimated (by services devoted to gay mens health) that 12% of the gay men are HIV positive. That means that every tenth gay guy who goes into a blood donor clinic in that city is likely to have HIV and is at risk of passing it on as the tests aren't completely perfect.

All I ever hear from gay people in this debate (and with my job I am quite close to the debate) is "discrimination", "hatred", "bigotry", etc. but we are being stupid if we think this sort of thing will sway CBS. Blood services don't base their practices on feelings but on peer reviewed studies and I have yet to see any sort of hard and fast evidence that if they let gay people donate blood, people will be less at risk.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't believe gay men should be giving blood. It probably will end up being as safe if they change their questions around and base them on sexual practices such as has a person every had sex without a condom, but at this moment, CBS has a supply of blood to meet the needs with its current questions in place and there isn't really any hard and fast evidence to support changing it from what I've seen.