mischievous, are you sure blood is pooled before testing? At the Blood Bank where I donate, they take 5 small vials of each donor’s blood to be tested for 5 different diseases (hepatitis, AIDS, west Nile, can’t remember the others). This, to me, implies that each donation is kept separate until the results of the 5 tests are back.
I gave blood just last Tuesday, at the government agency where I work. And it may be awhile before I give blood again.
The Red Cross booked appointments to donate, starting at 9am. My appointment was at 9:45. I arrived on time, and the chaise-lounge-type chairs where people sit while they give blood were empty. The Red Cross workers were still working on getting their equipment set up. Only the first two people with appointments were being asked all those questions yet; everyone else with earlier appointments than mine was waiting their turn. It was over an hour after my appointment time before I had a needle in my arm. About 12 minutes of that hour-plus consisted of being asked all the usual questions, and getting my temperature, pulse, BP, and blood iron levels checked, and another five minutes consisted of the usual prep of the arm before they put the needle in. But there was a solid fifty minutes of pure waiting.
The really bothersome thing was, this wasn’t the first time that’s happened to me there; the same thing happened the previous time I donated.
If the Red Cross can’t be bothered to show up sufficiently early to be ready to accept donations when they say they’re going to be, why should I waste a good chunk of my morning just waiting around for them to get their act together?
Given that I had donated a couple pints over 2 gallons before the switch and was well familiar to the local staff, who knew I had never had problems donating and had never had adverse reactions such as throwing up or fainting; and that I had no reason to believe that my iron levels had suddenly dropped at the exact same time they made the switch, in my personal case it served only to discourage.
If the test is allowing people to squeak through when in reality they have too-low iron levels to donate, then yes, something’s wrong with the test. If a different test is disqualifying people who’ve donated 20 times and never had a problem, perhaps there’s something wrong with it also.
I used to give VERY frequently, but then they decided my blood was no longer worthy, due to the fact that I was in Germany for more than 6 months in the 80s.
When they change that, I’ll be back.
Same here, and the weird thing is that their crit (I hope I’m remembering the term correctly) count is supposed to be 38, and according to a normal count, you are normal at 32 and over. I may be remembering the actual numbers incorrectly, but that is what I was told by the blood bank guy who tested my blood. He told me I didn’t have a high enough count, and I said “but I just had my company physical and they said it was normal” and he said “yeah, but we require a higher number”.
?? Oh well, they must not need it that badly if they’re that picky.
Oh, matt, I so feel you. Those things fill me with rage, too.
~kfl, who is blackballed for two reasons, one of them being that she had sex with a bisexual man five years ago.
The rationale is bigotry.
ALL blood is tested to remove the chance that it is tainted. As a former phlebotomist I saw the reports and at times had to send returning donors to the staff doctor to be told about their HIV status. While I worked there all the donors found to have HIV were straight.
Screening is a layered process.
It is stupid bigotry and nothing more that keeps gay men from being able to donate.
Succinctly,
Mockingbird
That’s how it was done when I worked at a center too.
Oh, you’ve been reading Focus on the Family again?
:rolleyes:
That must’ve been cheery work! 
Yeah, i’ve never understood why, given that all blood is tested anyway, they can’t accept blood from gay men, as long as the donor in question can state with certainty that he or she has not engaged in risky behavior recently (and no, i don’t count the simple fact of homosexuality as risky behavior).
I can’t imagine that many people–gay or straight–who thought themselves likely to have HIV, Hepatitis, etc. would think about donating blood. If the donors have a good faith belief that their blood is untainted, and if the blood is going to be tested anyway, what’s the problem?
The ‘clear part’ is plasma.
It was grim.
None of the people had the slightest idea that they were infected. The levels of shock were very real and very sad.
Such an irony that some of the donors were paranoid about getting me as their phlebotomist because “He’ll give me AIDS!”.
I’d never want to go back into that line of work.
"Well, he does love it when I peg him, he’s a great cook, and can throw together a spontaneous dinner party with flair. I think that lately I’ve been finding santorum in his underwear when I do the laundry. He loves to practice kissing with my Dad and Brother at family gatherings.
Y’know… no, they just don’t make 'em any straighter."
-Cindy C., a woman in deep denial
I’m a Type I diabetic and, as an O+ hero, I’ve been giving blood about twice a year since I’ve been old enough (2001). I also take rDNA human insulin. I talked to my specialist about it, and he said that there shouldn’t be any reason not to, as long as my sugars were good and I met the Red Cross’ requirements. If I remember correctly, as long as you’ve never used bovine insulin or had a change in insulin dosage in the past two weeks, you’re free and clear to donate. About.com diabetes section says as much. The American Red Cross says
(emphasis mine)
So, diabetics out there, your diabetes does not automatically preclude you from donating.
(Sorry, Ethilrist, if there are other mitigating factors. I’m not calling you out or anything. Just spreading the word.)
Interestingly, i think that this actually points up a way in which it might actually be even more reasonable to allow gay men to donate blood.
I realize that this is not an especially large sample, but every gay man i’ve ever known has been extremely conscious of the risks of contracting HIV, and has generally taken the appropriate precautions. Furthermore, almost every one them has had at least one HIV test.
Contrast this with my straight male friends, some of whom happily admit to riding bareback with multiple partners, and most of whom have never been tested for HIV.
Which of the two groups above do you think is most likely to be aware of any possible HIV status, and to avoid giving blood if they feel they might be a risk? I’m going for group A.
Is this still true? And if so, why?
I had no idea that having The Gay automatically disqualified you from donating. We have frequent blood drives at work, and I always miss the date because I’m absent-minded and working too much, and never realize it’s over until I see people walking around with bandages on their arms and call myself a
:wally
I’m sceduled in for apheresis on Friday, I go every two weeks. They only take about 510 mls of plasma out of me because I’m small, and they won’t take my red blood cells for a year because I had a piercing, but the good news is, that on this donation I get a **free travel clock ** 
Do they test or worry about West Nile? I really am pretty dang certain I got it a year ago or so. So would I be out? I haven’t given since, but was up to like 6 gallons.
Mmm, six gallons of O+ blood…
Last statistics I saw showed new infections in the US still being somewhat more common among gay men than the general population, but the difference is small, and of course most of us are free and clear. Even if the blood tests are done with pooled blood (can you pull a cite for that? Not that I don’t trust you, mischievous, but I’ve never heard that before) the amount of blood they could potentially collect from homos ought to make up the difference.
I just feel a little irritated by the notion that having had sex with a man - even once! - is risky behavior, but there’s no attention paid to risky behavior on the part of heteros. Risky is risky, and you’re not that much better off as a straight practitioner of unsafer sex than as a skanky homo.
Of course, a full report of a person’s sexual history is probably quite a challenge to collect, but then, back before I got all offended by it, I used to lie on that question. And I suspect a lot of folks do.
The blood bank dadsix worked with would take 5 small vials of blood with the donation and then use those for testing.
The way they did it was to put one vial from each of say, 10 donors together and run tests for the diseases they screen for. If that batch came up positive, they’d test one tube individually from each of the ten donors to find out which one caused the positive.
Other tubes were used for things like blood typing and other tests.