But they’re drawing with too broad a brush. A gay man who has had sex with a single partner since prior to 1977 is at much, much lower risk of having AIDS than a straight man who has engaged in serial relationships with women over the same time period. Similarly, “living in Great Britain” is too broad a disqualifier – “living in Great Britain and eating beef” is what they’re really shooting for.
musicguy:
I think the incarceration thing is asked because of things like ‘jailhouse tattoos’, the possibilty of a fight with other inmates, possibilty of rape in jail or prison, or other unsanitary exposure to someone who may have hepatitis or HIV. Right now I’m assuming they figure the likelihood of exposure increases in direct proportion to the amount of time incarcerated.
I’m slated to donate tomorrow, I could ask for more information when I speak to the blood bank people.
It’s actually during a particular window - 1980-something to 1990-something. So people who go backpacking now don’t knock themselves out of the running.
About 8% of the population of Oz are invalidated by this rule. And yes, it IS a big issue for the Blood Bank and caused ahem lively debate when introduced. But so far stocks have been kept up, with heavy recruiting of new donors.
I’m one of the people affected, so I’m hoping it’s reversed eventually. But I suppose that’s dependent on them figuring out what the CJD incubation period is. Or the UK itself running out of new CJD cases - I’m sure that would do it too.
Given I am set to migrate to Australia eventually, I feel some guilt that I could one day be in need of a donor’s blood, but not be able to donate back. Does it affect organ donations as well?
Just to clarify, in the U.S., the standard isn’t having lived in Great Britain, it’s having been in Great Britain for more than X number of months during the past Y years or between two years (I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the exact datea and number of months. The reason is CJD. Thus my parents can’t give blood because of too many visits back to England to visit the relatives, while I can because I’m too broke to visit (all three of us were born in England).
The Red Cross can also refuse to accept your blood because you have too much or too little iron in your blood, and they discourage you from donating blood if you have a cold. I was also banned from giving blood for about a decade after I went into shock after doing so once. Even now, when I do donate, I’m rather careful about it.
After getting rejected because my blood iron’s too low, I must admit that I’ve sometimes felt frustrated because the need for blood is so great and the standards are so tough. On the other hand, since I assume blood is being to people who are not in good health, I understand the Red Cross’s need to be cautious.
CJ
(formerly cjhoworth)
I think the tattoo ban is only for a year (at least in some places it is).
KarlGrenze:
The tattoo ban for the Central Blood Bank where I donate is definitely one year, because it includes all piercings also and I had to wait a year after getting my tongue pierced to donate blood. One of the questions on the checklist is ‘Have you had any tattoos or piercings in the last 12 months?’
CJ:
The iron standard exists not because it’s any danger to the recipient but there’s too great a complication risk for the person who’s doing the donating. If your iron is too low and you donate, you’re at increased risk for passing out, even after you’ve left the cookie and juice stage.
The injustice here appears to be not that a certain group is restricted from giving blood, but the statistical fallacy implied with which group is restricted. One might well find that blood from 18-24 year olds carries greater risk than other age groups due to relatively greater drug-use, sexual profligacy and tropical backpacking - does one refuse blood from such an age group “just to be sure”?. Poverty is strongly correlated with ill health. An argument might even be made classifying preponderance of unsuitable blood according to race.
As stated, the OP does appear to fall into this category.
Care to enlighten us on this “statistical fallacy”?
Yes it could. If 40%, or even 1/3rd, of all blacks were considered to have sickle cell anemia, it would be prudent, especially to the black population, to take such into consideration and “discriminate” based upon that statistic.
A lot of the deferrals are either 6 months or a year. Only a handful are permanent, namely either being infected with a blood-borne pathogen or engaging in high-risk behavior. Other questions have a seies of follow-ups to clarify how high-risk you are, like the piercing question. If you had a minor piercing, like your ears, and had it done someplace that they know uses sterile equipment (like a jewelry store at the mall), you can usually go on and donate.
The thing about monogamy and “safe” sex is this: people and condoms aren’t foolproof. Sometimes your lover lies to you about his history. Sometimes your lover lies to you about being monogamous. Sometimes condoms slip off. Sometimes they tear or break or leak just a little tiny bit. Sometimes you just get carried away. It was just once, and you’re monogamous, so you’re safe, right? You get tested every year, so it’s no big deal.
Except that your lover’s been screwing around on you, and he’s infected now, and the one time that condom failed was a month ago, and you don’t have enough antibodies for your donation to test positive. You’ve got plenty of virus to infect the person who gets your blood, though.
Sure some gay men have been in disease-free monogamous relationships since 1977, but they’re damned few and far between, just like straight people and lesbians who fit those criteria. Let’s say that 20% of each group fits the criteria of both partners being totally disease-free, and having been together and monogamous for the last 26 years. (I think that’s a hard-core overestimate, but it’s a nice round number, so we’ll keep it.) Roughly half the population is male, and maybe 10% of those men are gay. We’re already talking about only 5% of the population being barred from donating. If only 20% of that group fit the restrictions, you’re talking about 1% of the population being unfairly banned.
Allowing that 1% (or less) to donate isn’t going to generate enough new blood donations to outweigh the increased risk.
I’m sorry if you feel like you’re unfairly discriminated against, but I can be barred because of my sexual history, too. If I traded sex for drugs or money, I can’t donate. It doesn’t matter if we practiced “safe” sex (there’s no such thing, just less risky sex), I still can’t give blood. Same goes for sleeping with an IV drug user. Sure, I might be lying about it, but that doesn’t make the screening process useless and stupid.
This has always been a moral problem to me. I have a rare blood type (AB) so my blood is particularly in demand, but depending on how you define “sexual intercourse” I have had homosexual intercourse within the past several years. However, without becoming too graphic or telling too much about the specifics of my sex life, I have absolutely no doubts whatever that I am 100% HIV free. (I’ve had only one sexual partner and we were… ahem… very limited in what we did together- pardon the frankness, but
we never came into direct contact with each other’s semen
besides which, my partner is HIV-. Therefore, I feel completely safe in giving blood even though technically I have to lie to do it. I feel it’s the lesser of two inequities.
I’m not insulted by the questionnaire so much as I feel it should be far more sexually explicit, such as
“Have you ever had anal sex either as the insertive or passive partner?”
“Have you ever had sex with anybody who has a sexual history that would put them at above average risk for HIV/AIDS?”
“Have you ever had unprotected intercourse with a relative stranger?”
You know, I’ve never thought about that.
Anyway, your question inspired me, so I went to the Organ Donor Registry and (since it’s a good thing to do, and all) filled in their online registration.
They certainly don’t say anything about CJD-related reasons for refusal, and the Blood Bank does - which I would have expected, since isn’t it much more difficult to match up an organ than blood? So if they need your organs they really REALLY need them and the recipient probably isn’t too worried about getting possible nasty diseases ten years down the track.
Anyway, I don’t plan on being in a position to donate my organs for at least another 50 years and by then the whole thing will probably have blown over 
How important is public perception regarding the safety of the blood supply? Is it possible that public perception is just as important as the actual safety of the blood?
Marc
What I find most offensive is that several heterosexuals I know are FAR more at risk for HIV/AIDS than most of the gays I know, and yet because their many partners haven’t included any tattooed gay Haitian IV drug users they’re perfectly welcome to give blood. It’s time to change that questionnaire to a more frank one.