The Red Cross and blood donations

[zhul4nder]

So, my school does this blood donations thing for seniors right? I went in there, they had a questionaire for me and i answered it. Then they denied my blood because i had come in sexual contact with another male within the last 30 years. I've only been alive for 17? So my question is should that 'rule' stay or go? or will it go?

[rzr]

That's a ****ed up rule. Unless they have scientific reasoning behind it, they need to jump off their high-horses and see the world we live in today.

[zhul4nder]

well that's my reality, I was denied because of that reason...Plus, they even told me they thought it was a ridiculous rule because they get the blood tested anywaYs.

[rzr]

That's probably just an extra safety precaution, nothing against you.

[zhul4nder]

yea, i'm sure. But it's still kind of aggravating they do have that stupid rule. she said that since I'm in the system, I'm technically banned from donating blood for the Red cross of course except for myself.

[Cyanite]

It's a medical precaution they take to prevent killing someone with your donation.

Yes, they test the blood, but there's about a 1 in 1,000,000 failure rate in the testing method, and the Red Cross gets 20,000,000 donations of blood every year.

They're not picking on you.

[zhul4nder]

So do they take the same precaution with any sexual activity? If that's the case, then how can they possibly get any donations at all?

[NFD]

It's because you're gay.

[rzr]

Which is a factor that should be left out of the decision.

[kommisar[os]]

It's because you're gay.

i bet they'd refuse furries too

[Cavernio]

It's probably because as a percentage, the gay community has more STD's or maybe specifically just AIDS. But I actually have no idea, I'm just throwing that out there as to why they might be picking on gay people specifically. They could just be doing that because it's perceived that they've had more STDs in the past 30 years.
There's also many other questions that are asked that could be construed as 'in poor taste', where if you answer yes, you can't give blood. For instance, if you've travelled or lived in Africa or the UK.

[Reach]

It's a bit silly in my opinion. The logic for the precaution usually goes as such: Since gay men make up a rather small % of the population (Around 5%?), and since as many as 20% of them are infected with AIDS, the risk of taking blood from them is not worth the extra blood.

I don't know the failure rates for blood testing, but they're quite low. Assuming they actually are 1 in a million though, I don't see the problem.

Crude calculations put maybe 30,000 men in Canada with AIDS that are gay (Assume ~5% of the population is gay and male, and 20% are infected, which I ripped quickly from google) . Another crude calculation based on a 0.3% infection rate of AIDS in the general population means that ~45,000 straight males are infected with AIDS.

Therefore, regardless of it being a high risk group in and of itself, it's still more likely for infected blood to be from a straight male. If they're desperate for blood, I don't see why they wouldn't take it, given how unlikely it is for the test to fail anyway.

[devonin]

The thing I find the most ridiculous is that in order to try and be as complete and non-offensive with overly blunt questions as possible, they go through the giant list of questions all of which could be covered under asking one or two specific overarching questions.

If they just opened with "Have you ever had sex" "Have you ever had unprotected sex" and "Have you ever had sex with a member of the same sex" and they got a no for any of those, they could just skip over a whole host of things that they end up asking you anyway.

[Sh4d0wD3v1L]

I didn't read much of the thread but the OP, so sorry if I repeat someone.

Like I did read, the people accepting blood donations (Red Cross) don't want to run the risk of an individual having AIDS and not knowing it and then spreading it along. They also (as far as I know) refuse blood from people who had sexual contact with prostitutes for the same reason. That's why the "did you have sex with multiple partners..." is a question.

Additionally, it's not just sexual contact that can get you refused. I went in to donate after I had my eyebrow pierced, (about 4 months later) and I was refused. Didn't make a big deal out of it, they have good reason. If you donated, and had AIDS but didn't know it, (I'm not saying you do. I'm making a HUGE what if here) and neither did the blood center, then they transfused said blood into a sick individual who then contracted AIDS, there would be a HUGE controversy over the whole situation, and I'm sure even stricter rules would be enforced.

The important thing here is that you went to donate. At least you got that far. The majority of people as far as I know don't even make it there.

[Grandiagod]

"Have you ever had sex"

Are you suggesting only virgins should donate blood or was this not an example of your own opinion on the topic matter but rather an example of simplifying questions?

[zhul4nder]

@grandiagod
That's my question too...should virgins only donate blood? I think I read in the above posts that it's higher chance to get an HIV infected heterosexual than a homosexual one.

[zhul4nder]

It's a bit silly in my opinion. The logic for the precaution usually goes as such: Since gay men make up a rather small % of the population (Around 5%?), and since as many as 20% of them are infected with AIDS, the risk of taking blood from them is not worth the extra blood.

I don't know the failure rates for blood testing, but they're quite low. Assuming they actually are 1 in a million though, I don't see the problem.

Crude calculations put maybe 30,000 men in Canada with AIDS that are gay (Assume ~5% of the population is gay and male, and 20% are infected, which I ripped quickly from google) . Another crude calculation based on a 0.3% infection rate of AIDS in the general population means that ~45,000 straight males are infected with AIDS.

Therefore, regardless of it being a high risk group in and of itself, it's still more likely for infected blood to be from a straight male. If they're desperate for blood, I don't see why they wouldn't take it, given how unlikely it is for the test to fail anyway.
wait, you're saying that 0.3% isn't including gay people?

[SithCait22]

Im too lazy to read through all of this, but.......It's a thing about being gay. Someone at sometime in history implanted in the minds of everyone that gay men are the only ones who can get HIV/AIDS. You know that us gays are seriously the most destructive AIDS carrying ****ers in the whole world, right?

Its honestly stupid as hell. Lesbians? No they dont care. Its only the men. I remember seeing that at my school for LifeShare and i made a deal about it, i got suspended and all, but i made my point there.

[Lipidman]

There are statistics which suggest that lesbians are the least likely to contract any form of STI, less so than straight women. I don't blame them for discriminating against males.

Honestly, though, I think it's pretty crude of them to constantly ask for donations -usually advertising a shortage of them as incentive- then to outright deny an entire population of people from donating simply because they've had sex with another male, which might or might not have last occured at a time before the people working at the donation facilities were even born.

When donating in Australia, the questionnaire suggests a 12 month deferral in the event that you have had sex with someone who may be gay/bi/suspected of having AIDS/HIV. I suppose that means we're a little more lenient? Though I'm not sure why they recommend waiting a year. It's not like STI's suddenly go away on their own.

[devonin]

Presumably because in a year, you'd have started showing symptoms of anything you may have contracted, and thus presumably either been tested, or concluded that since nothing showed up, that you aren't infected.

[kommisar[os]]

I don't see why gay people have a higher percentage of aids/std's than straight people. I don't think being gay encourages unprotected sex.

[Cavernio]

kommisar: I guess this is my few years of age on you which makes me know this, but AIDS was originally a disease that only gay people got, or so was commonly 'known'. There was a huge stigma in that you had to have had gay sex at some point if you had AIDS. The 'official' story I've heard is that the AIDS epidemic started by some gay Europeans or Americans who picked it up in Africa, and so it spread to the gay community first. None of this I know for fact, but just what I've heard from the media at some point in my life. If this is actually true, it would make sense with the other tidbit of information that the lesbian population has a low percentage of AIDS.

As far as being gay encouraging unprotected sex, I would say that they're more likely to engage in sex, proportionally, than heterosexuals, particularly for the younger ages. This means more opportunities for sexual diseases to be spread, regardless of protection. There's firstly no pregnancy fear, which would also knocks out some people who would otherwise use condoms. (Why? Because people lie about their sexual past all the time, saying they don't have any STD's because they can't, and why would you need protection if there's nothing to worry about?) Religiously, you're already damned for being gay, so I can't imagine there's a lot of open gays who have strong reasons to practice abstinence either. There's another thing which is just me musing really, but there's not as many fish in the sea to choose from, so to speak, being gay. If I were gay, personally, I think I'd jump on opportunities for sex much more than I do now. Also, if you're gay, there's not an expectation from society, friends or family to settle down and have a family and kids. There's probably (I'm assuming) proportionally way more gay people who are unmarried/not in common-law relationships than heterosexuals, and I'd assume they're having sex with many more people than 'settled' people are.

[Vendetta21]

wait, you're saying that 0.3% isn't including gay people?

No, but he is misinterpreting statistics to conclude things that the statistics don't support.

[H3llacious]

It has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that it is a federal regulation. Because of Food and Drug Administration regulations, sexually active, healthy, gay males are ineligible to donate blood. The regulation states that a male who has had sexual contact with another male since 1977, cannot donate. When the policy was installed in 1983, it was necessary in the eyes of the FDA, because at the time AIDS was thought to be most prevalent in that community.

Therefore, gay men banned from blood donation.

[kommisar[os]]

kommisar: I guess this is my few years of age on you which makes me know this, but AIDS was originally a disease that only gay people got, or so was commonly 'known'. There was a huge stigma in that you had to have had gay sex at some point if you had AIDS. The 'official' story I've heard is that the AIDS epidemic started by some gay Europeans or Americans who picked it up in Africa, and so it spread to the gay community first. None of this I know for fact, but just what I've heard from the media at some point in my life. If this is actually true, it would make sense with the other tidbit of information that the lesbian population has a low percentage of AIDS.



I did hear different stories about the origin of AIDS but wasn't aware it was more common with the gay population at first


rather than simply rejecting you for gay sexual activity perhaps you could bring proof you've been tested?

[Cavernio]

Makes sense to me kommisar.

[funmonkey54]

I don't think this is an issue. It is simply to protect the people who receive your blood. DOn't take offense.