Blood donations by gay men

[Jazzy]

The United States should repeal a 30-year policy that bans blood donations from gay and bisexual men, according to a team of medical and legal experts writing this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Currently, a man who has ever had sex with another man cannot donate blood in the United States -- a lifetime ban that has been in place since 1983.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration adopted this policy at the dawn of the AIDS crisis. However, changing times and technological advances have rendered the decades-old ban obsolete, said JAMA article co-author Glenn Cohen, who directs Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics.

"We think it's time for the FDA to take a serious look at its policy, because it's out of step with peer countries, it's out of step with modern medicine, it's out of step with public opinion, and we feel it may be legally problematic," said Cohen, who co-wrote the article with Jeremy Feigenbaum of Harvard Law School and Dr. Eli Adashi of Brown University's medical school.

By implementing a lifetime ban on donation from sexually active gay or bisexual males, "you're giving a 'scarlet letter' of sorts to these men," Cohen said.

Full article

Should the lifetime ban on blood donation from sexually active gay or bisexual males be lifted? Why / Why not?

 

[alv4]

God no, Is absurd, It have no sense at all.

 

[gaze-universe]

How about hospitals invest in equipment that rotates the patients own blood and better treatments that are available in the stead of blood transfusions to those who refuse blood transfusions at the moment. And only leave blood tranfusions to severe cases where one might need a complete one.

I don't accept blood for the sheer thought of someone else's blood in me is disgusting.

 

[Nebulous]

News Flash: people from all walks of life carry disease. With all patients, test the blood before and make sure it's good. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it.

 

[DrLeftover]

NOTE: This article is posted on one of the 'gay-centric' websites, NOT on that disgusting hater of Fox.

Shocking Increase in HIV Diagnosis Rate Among Young Gay, Bi Men
While overall HIV diagnosis rates have decreased nationwide, young gay men are seeing a frightening uptick in new diagnoses, according to the CDC.

23 July

New HIV diagnoses among gay and bisexual men between the ages of 13 and 24 increased by a staggering 132.5 percent between 2001 and 2011, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But the annual diagnosis rate for the general American population dropped by a third over the same time period, according to research culled from CDC data and published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Although 500,000 new cases of HIV were diagnosed over the decade-long study, the annual rate of diagnoses decreased from 24 out of every 100,000 people to 16 out of every 100,000 people, marking a decrease in annual rate of diagnosis by 33 percent, according to WebMD's HealthDay News.

http://www.advocate.com/health/2014/07/22/shocking-increase-hiv-infection-rate-among-young-gay-bi-men

 

[Jazzy]

News Flash: people from all walks of life carry disease. With all patients, test the blood before and make sure it's good. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it.

Is it true that I can get a free AIDS test when I donate blood?

You should not give blood to get tested for AIDS. Using blood donation as a way to get tested could put the blood supply at risk and endanger patients. HIV antibodies may take a few weeks to develop after infection with the virus. If you were recently infected, you might have a negative test result, yet be able to infect the recipient of your donation. That is why you must not give blood if you are at risk of getting AIDS or other infectious diseases. Individuals at risk for contracting HIV should contact their local health department for AIDS testing.

 

[Nebulous]

News Flash: people from all walks of life carry disease. With all patients, test the blood before and make sure it's good. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it.

Is it true that I can get a free AIDS test when I donate blood?

You should not give blood to get tested for AIDS. Using blood donation as a way to get tested could put the blood supply at risk and endanger patients. HIV antibodies may take a few weeks to develop after infection with the virus. If you were recently infected, you might have a negative test result, yet be able to infect the recipient of your donation. That is why you must not give blood if you are at risk of getting AIDS or other infectious diseases. Individuals at risk for contracting HIV should contact their local health department for AIDS testing.

Uh... ANY promiscuous person is at risk of AIDS or other diseases. That's common sense. Straight people don't get STDs?

 

[DrLeftover]

Most other Sexually Transmitted diseases are not as fatal in the short term (ten years or so), and as easily transmitted as AIDS, and Hepatitis C.

Both of which have a higher rate of infection among certain subsets of the population, say, IV drug users and male homosexuals, than they do others.

And, in most cases, the disease is avoidable.

Morbidity
Number of new HIV cases: 49,273 (2011)

Mortality

Number of deaths: 8,369
Deaths per 100,000 population: 2.7

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/aids-hiv.htm

People infected with HIV through sex have no increased death rate within five years if they get the best treatment. That's the conclusion of a British study of 16,000 people. But the death rate within 10 years was a bit higher for some age groups. Death rates also were higher, even within five years, for injection drug users, men, and people who were older when infected. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. This virus causes AIDS. The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

http://healthyliving.msn.com/diseases/aids-hiv/5-year-survival-rate-normal-for-treated-hiv-1

 

[Evil Eye]

Might as well lift the ban. All blood needs to be tested anyway, so what does it matter? They might be saving on workload, but they're also saving on donations. Honestly it comes across as pretty lazy.

 

[beowulf]

News Flash: people from all walks of life carry disease. With all patients, test the blood before and make sure it's good. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it.

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