oldscratch:
I don’t think they keep those kind of statistics. I guess it would depend on how influential you are, and the blood supply of your locality in relation to the timing of your influence’s peak. It would depend on how many people who would have given to the Red Cross no longer give at all because they have no faith in that organization due to your arguments.
I would hope that that number is zero, and remains so.
Trying not to come down on either side of this.
This thread and the original one in MPSIMS have been enlightening. If one was listing unlikely Pit topics, I would have thought this one would be near the top of the list.
Una (who is not allowed to donate blood, which is not her fault)
There seems to be some kind of… misunderstanding going on here. Most of the posters that are expressing their disagreement with the Red Cross’s policies are, for differing reasons, ineligible as donors. (It’s a generalization. Live with it.)
If the Red Cross is the only option in their area, what should they do? Lie? And if lying is acceptable, it seems to follow that the Red Cross’s policies need to be changed to reflect the changing times.
Well someone(s) were saying that OTHERS should avoid the Red Cross. I’m just saying that if the Red Cross is the only thing available in your area, and you are allowed to donate, please do, and use other means to show your protest.
you can always give at the hospital like nym did opal.
and if there was an organization that did good, but also refused help from catholics or blacks…I would urge everyone to not help the organization…no matter what they did…
Evidentally some people think it’s ok to support discrimination against queers.
That’s what I’m saying as well. Avoid the Red Cross. Go to a hospital. Go to another group that doesn’t discriminate. It’s not ok to discriminate against anyone, and I will not support an organization that does.
Do ALL hospitals do blood donation?
Bullshit. This is the first I’ve heard of this, and I took the time to research the issue out and present links from both sides of the argument. My conclusions are based on facts and science, and despite your claims to the contrary there is nothing discriminatory about them.
The fact that the onslaught of AIDS made it unwise to accept donations of blood from male homosexuals in the recent past cannot be blamed upon the Red Cross.
That the FDA is cautious in the removal of this criteria is only prudent.
That blood centers are concerned about the lack of available blood and support the removal is a fact…Are you claiming they don’t care about risks?
That large ammounts of medical experts think the thinking is outdated is a fact…are you saying they don’t care about the risks…
The Red Cross doesn’t even support taking it down to five years. A level even more secure than that for fucking a whore. They are saying that all homosexuals can not be trusted.
They oppose the FDA removing the ban.
Nature is not always PC. It is an unfortunate fact that an actively gay male is statistically at high risk for HIV infection.
Now that the safeguards and testing are accurate enough, and now that the demographics of the disease have changed, it makes sense that the FDA, the Red Cross, and the ABBA revisit and redefine the criteria used to exclude donors based on sound science as they are doing now.
The FDA has been slow in this (but that’s par for the course.) That doesn’t make it discrimination. That’s a potentially damaging allegation and one that needs to be fully supported by facts before it can be made responsibly.
Opal: I don’t know that all hospitals do. Most mid to large sized ones do, from what I know.
Scylla: It’s not just male homosexuals. It’s male homosexuals, and women who have had sex with gay/bi males. I can understand the “prior to 1982” thing, when the cause of AIDS was unknown, but with the advances in HIV testing, it makes it unnecessary.
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If you can explain to me how someone who had sex with a gay man in 1980 and has been abstinent since is an actively gay male…go for it…otherwise shut up.
This new assay for detecting the disease in its early and dormant stages is only about 6 months old (check my last link.)
It has not been completely tested yet, and already the Red Cross is applying it to all blood becuase doing so might save a life.
For many years the screening was the primary method of protecting the blood supply. These tests were not acceptably protected. The gay community at large supported and urged active gays not to give blood becuase of the risks (see link to law site.)
In the last few years, hell, in the last few months, huge and dramatic improvements have been made in testing. Only a few short years ago these didn’t exist at all.
The Red Cross, The FDA, and the gay community have displayed enormous and praiseworthy responsibility in protecting the general welfare, so somebody would not die needlessy.
They will almost surely redefine the criteria in the very near future, on their own, based on carefully considered science. Should they move before this test had been proven effective to satisfy your moral imperative?
No. They should move when they are sure that doing so will do no harm, and will both increase the safety and the quantity of the blood supply, and they shouldn’t budge to political motivations one inch until these things have been proven, as they almost surely will.
It is not discrimination. It is prudent caution, and when the criteria is changed, it won’t be a blow against discrimination, or a victory for any political group, it will be a victory for science and for all of society who will benefit.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by oldscratch *
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Will do:
It has nothing to do with you personally. It has to do with the demographic group an answer to this question puts you in. At the time that criteria was put in place that demographic group was at statistically high-risk and testing was not accurate enough to reasonably merit the risk inherent in taking your donation.
That that is almost certainly no longer true has to do with the passing of time, the increased scientific knowledge of the HIV virus, and increasingly superior testing techniques.
For a long time that and other screening criteria were saving lives. Surely you see that. That the Red Cross, The FDA, and indeed the World Health Organization is cautious in lowering a proven and effective line of defense with new techniques can only be a reasonable course of action.
As the data comes in on this new assay which didn’t even exist 6 months ago these criteria can be evaluated once more, and they will almost surely be changed. Things are actually happening with this the way they should: Herculean efforts with the public safety at the forefront, combined with caution.
I have seen no reasonable case for discrimination as of yet.
Did you actually read any of my links?
yes i did…have you read a word I’ve posted?
Not related to the HIV issue, I’ll take a moment to post about my last blood giving episode:
I had given blood a lot of times before. I was past my gallon mark and onto my two gallon mark when I donated for my last time. It was a Red Cross blood drive and the nurse who was doing the needle inserting managed to miss the vein. So she reinserted. And reinserted again, and twisted the needle around a bit. By the end of it, I didn’t have much of a bruise, but my inner arm hurt like a bitch. For that matter, to this day carrying anything of decent weight in my left arm that cases my arm to be pulled downward will cause pain and aching in that spot for hours at a shot. In other words, they managed to fuck my arm up pretty well and this was about 6-7 years ago and I’m still feeling the effects.
Funny how they never mentioned this sort of thing occuring on their website. Anyway, I’m not saying anyone else should refrain from donating blood, but I’ll be damned if I’m giving them a chance to fuck up my other arm (or make my left arm worse).
I think a word we need to all understand is “discriminatory.” Manhattan brought up the straight man lying about the hooker he was with, and I think that sums it up nicely. There was also a lovely young man in chat last night talking about lying about being gay so he could donate blood. Then there’s me (and others) NOT lying and NOT being able to give blood.
If you’re not going to trust me to have sex with a bi man with a condom if I SAID I did, why are you going to trust that guy in a business suit over there that doesn’t believe that blowjob he got at the baths last week counts as “real sex,” and therefore he doesn’t need to SAY he did.
Trust all or trust none. This is why they test and retest the blood. Everything else is discrimination in my view, yes. If someone else feels okay with that as long as it helps save their 5 year old daughter, that’s fine. I know a lot of people that have had safe sex with someone on the Red Cross’s shit list 20 years ago with kids, too. They don’t dig it so well.
Knocked off a list for my behaviour. This hasn’t happened since I applied to the garden club in '87. :rolleyes:
This would be a whole different issue, obviously, if the Red Cross discriminated on distributing the blood.
I cannot donate blood. I do not feel myself discriminated against. Maybe that’s because the reason I can’t is out of my control, and is not linked to any behavioral choices I made. It seems that there is a line here in the arguments - those who can’t donate because of choices they made feel wronged, those that can’t because of choices made for them do not.
Is this protest really just a reflection of a deeper feeling? A resentment over being “punished” for engaging in behavior risky to one’s health? A feeling that society is “judging you” by proxy for knowingly engaging in this risky behavior? Just some random thoughts.
Maybe this is really wrong of me, but I lie. I’m not gay, but I have used IV drugs and engaged in some cagy sexual practices with some cagy partners. I stopped using 13 years ago. I have not had unprotected sex in 10 years. (hell, I haven’t had sex in 5 years) I have been tested twice since my celibacy. No HIV. Except for diabetes, a clean bill of health. And they test the blood. So when they ask if I’ve ever used IV drugs, I say no.
I do apheresis, which is plasma donation. Hey, once they find out you’re O- and the least bit willing, they are all over you. In apheresis, you sit in a chair. They put a tube in one arm, the blood passes through a machine where the red blood cells and plasma are sucked out, and then the remaining fluid is sent into the other arm. It takes about 2 hours per donation, but since you don’t lose that much fluid, you’re not light-headed afterwards.
I probably wouldn’t do it at all, if these bastards wouldn’t keep calling me back.
Does this make me a bad person?
That’s a really interesting point, Anthracite. The Red Cross won’t take my blood, either, because I have lupus (I don’t know why that is a problem, but it’s something they ask on the questionnaire and it was the deal breaker). It wouldn’t have occurred to me to feel discriminated against.
Anyway…
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the cost involved in accepting blood from people who are statistically more likely to have infectious diseases. Yes, there may be accurate tests in place to screen blood before it is used in transfusion, but it seems like it would be more cost effective to only take blood from people who are statistically likely not to have infectious diseases. For example (and I am definitely not an expert on blood donations, so please correct me for any blatant errors I’m about to make) - Say they come up with a test that is 100% accurate in screening out blood with the presence of HIV. The Red Cross then stops asking any questions relating to potential risky behavior in regards to HIV. Statistics show that the amount of contaminated blood that can’t be used would increase. Collecting blood that can’t be used takes time, volunteers, paid workers, and money. At some point, they’ll break even. It seems fiscally responsible to try to get the greatest amount of non-contaminated blood with the fewest number of donors.
I’m not really sure where I stand on this issue, so I’m just throwing this point up for discussion.