Trying to combat a discriminatory policy, unsure where to go from here

[Undreamt]

They do ask questions about men having sex with women. They are working with a complex issue, they can't have broad sweeping exclusions of straight people because then they would have no donors at all.

Thats just laughable. Yeah you can't offend the majority [/sarcasm]

Just for laughs I looked up the criteria for donating blood.
http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-bl...al-listing

You can have chlamydia and donate blood as long as you don't have visual symtoms.

The balance of acceptable risk with the restrictions of cost and the supply needs is a decision to be made by health professionals.

Please explain the cost issue. They screen and test all blood, the only additional costs would be processing additional blood. Isn't this a good thing, Don't they want more blood?

It is a safer decision to exclude all MSM, even if they present less of a risk than certain straight people who might not be screened out, because it is less costly to design exclusion criteria to catch those straight people and the risk for a promiscuous straight person is still lower than for gay people.

Please provide research that supports your rediculous claim. If exclusion criteriate are designed to remove people that take risky behaviour then sexuality has no part in the issue.

There is a misconception that only promiscuous gay people contract HIV, there are plenty of people who only get involved in monogamous relationships and still contract the virus. This is the reality of dealing with a virus that is already widely present in the community.

There is also a misconception that only gay people get HIV.

[dfiant]

In Australia you can't donate blood if you have engaged in 'High Risk Sexual Behaviour' in the last 12 months

53
Sexual activity - Is there any kind of sexual activity that will affect my ability to donate blood?
If you have any reason to believe you may have acquired an infection through unprotected sex, you should not donate.
Safe sex practices are vital to the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. However, 'protected sex' is not 100% effective and therefore the Blood Service's guidelines relating to sexual activity are based on the prevalence of infection in certain population groups.
The following questions are asked in regard to sexual activity:

• Have you ever thought you could be infected with HIV or have AIDS?
  

• In the last 12 months have you engaged in sexual activity with someone who you think might answer yes to any of the questions on the following:
  • the use of intravenous drugs, or
    
  • infection with HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HTLV, or
    
  • treatment with clotting factors?
    
  
  

• Since your last donation or in the last 12 months have you had sexual activity with a new partner who currently lives or has previously lived overseas?
  

Within the last 12 months have you:

• Had male to male sex (that is, oral or anal sex) with or without a condom?
  

• Had sex (with or without a condom) with a male who you think may have had oral or anal sex (with or without a condom) with another man?
  

• Been a male or female sex worker (e.g. received payment for sex in money, gifts or drugs?)
  

• Engaged in sex with a male or female sex worker?
  

If at any time, the answer is 'yes' to any of the above questions, then you will be deferred from donating for 12 months after the last occurrence of any of the above sexual activities.

So based on that, I would have to say that those conditions that have ruled you out of donating blood would seem to be discriminatory and needs to be bought to someones attention.

[MisterTinkles]

[SIZE="4"]I think what he's saying is that he isnt offended by the question itself, but offended because it was not asked of women also.

Women can have some nasty incurable diseases, so why the double standard????


I say go for it.
Id also write the Gay and Lesbian Task Force, as well as any local groups.
There are all sorts of human rights organizations, you just have to seek them out and get their opinions on this.[/SIZE]

[Geminize]

There is a sad fact that -- as gay and bi men -- we are in a high risk population for STD's. The FDA's policy on blood donors reflects this and the public's perception of "acceptable risk". Public health and blood donation are both quite complex. Some of us will be sidelined in an attempt to simplify the system.

I am not an apologist for the system. It has serious downfalls. Just try to take a step back and imagine managing millions of blood donations and minimizing the risk of communicable disease. Yes, promiscuity is a better metric of risk than homosexuality. But people are more likely to be honest about homosexual behavior than promiscuity. It sucks. It's complex. Welcome to the real world.

In an ideal world, the policy on blood donation would be based on nothing but the best science available on the subject. Unfortunately, science and public policy take an excruciating amount of time to change. Does it affect your life and mine? Yes. Is it fair? No. Get used to it. Life is not fair.

Do you want to affect change? GREAT! Arguing with volunteers on the street will get you nowhere. Let the decision makers know that you object to their outdated policies and are willing to donate your healthy blood -- as soon as their policies change.

[OrphanPip]

Thats just laughable. Yeah you can't offend the majority

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you accidentally misread what I wrote, rather than simply assuming you are obtuse. Straight people make up 95% of the population, thus excluding even 5% of straight people from donating blood would have a greater impact on the amount of blood available than one that excludes all MSM. I was simply pointing out the fact that they have to have less strident guidelines for straight people just so that they can have enough eligible donors.

Just for laughs I looked up the criteria for donating blood.

You can have chlamydia and donate blood as long as you don't have visual symtoms.

Chlamydia isn't usually transmitted by blood, and it is curable with antibiotics. Thus, they have obviously deemed it to be an acceptable risk. However, neither you or myself is qualified to make those decisions.

Please explain the cost issue. They screen and test all blood, the only additional costs would be processing additional blood. Isn't this a good thing, Don't they want more blood?

The matter of determining cost, risks, and benefits of any decision is up to the regulating bodies, who as recently as 2010 have decided that the matter needed more study before changing policy.

Please provide research that supports your rediculous claim. If exclusion criteriate are designed to remove people that take risky behaviour then sexuality has no part in the issue.

Of course sexuality has a part in the issue if one is required to make demographic projections based on available health data.

My claim is far from ridiculous. In the US there are roughly 500,000 MSM with HIV, accounting for an estimated 1/5 gay men. There are roughly 500,000 straight people with HIV. That means about 4/100 straight people have HIV in the USA. So, a promiscuous straight person can literally have sex with 34 random (I did the math on this quickly so it might be off by a couple people) women before he would have the same chance of having sexual relations with a person who has HIV as a gay man having sex with 1 random other gay guy. Of course, this is a gross simplification (not only because I counted all 500,000 as women for the sake of calculating the risk for straight men, and ignoring how many of those infections arise from intravenous needles rather than sex) because of the complexity of demographics, someone who has sex with prostitutes would obviously be more at risk. However, it is quite easy to deduce from the basic stats that the risk for a promiscuous straight person in the US is relatively low.

There is also a misconception that only gay people get HIV.

And the point being? I'm not remotely interested in attempting to argue the pros or cons of the various policy minutia. It is a matter for health professionals to determine and not a matter for the court of public opinion.

[Counselor]

I'd like to see them try to take my awesome gay blood by force. I'm keeping it all to myself.

[Undreamt]

But people are more likely to be honest about homosexual behavior than promiscuity.

Really? I mean really? What world do you live in?
You think that people are more likely to out themselves than to admit having one night stands?
Wow, I just don't know what to say to that.

I've had friends brag about 'buying a 19 year old' (loosing their virginity to a prostitute)
I know people that go one a year to Thailand for the 'massages' and cheap women.
I've seen the photo albums of girls that friends have claimed to sleep with.

I have NEVER met a straight guy that will openly admit in public that he has fooled around with a guy.

Unfortunately, science and public policy take an excruciating amount of time to change. Does it affect your life and mine? Yes. Is it fair? No. Get used to it. Life is not fair.

Oh so if things take a long time to change its not worth fighting for? That is just bullshit.
Yes life is not fair but that doesn't mean you should just bend over. If there is something or someone trying to exclude you then the proper thing to do is fight back.

Now, there are appropriate times for everything, I wouldn't recommend running a protest through the emergency ward of a hospital for example.
But this is a gay forum, where people should feel safe from discrimination and should be encouraged to stand up for their rights and be themselves.

Why are you trying to excuse the behavior of people with illegitimate prejudiced, outdated views?
Do you really want to be an enabler for this bullshit to continue?

[MysteryGuest]

@Geminize: I sincerely apologize. I didn't really intend to imply that you were "a hyperpromiscuous sex fiend," that was meant to be a hyperbole describing the stereotypical gay man as it seemed to be seen by you and the previous posters. In retrospect it was in poor taste, so again, my apologies.

About your suggestions for protest, that does sound like a way to protest this policy, and indeed I've found some examples of those protests in skimming the web to find organizations to contact about this, but it seems to be the opposite of what I'm trying to do. I'm angry that this discriminatory policy exists, sure, but one of the main reasons I'm angry isn't so much that this is anti-gay, it's more that we're shooting ourselves in the foot by refusing perfectly good life saving blood from willing donors (so it's a really stupid form of anti-gay, similar to jimbopdxus's "I'd rather die than have blood from a black person in me" guy). Boycotting it seems like a step in the opposite direction. I want more blood collected for the sake of those that need it, but a boycott would result in less. It is for this reason, too, that I still intend to give blood, not in protest but for the reason I was originally going to give blood: to do my part to help those in need of it. I certainly intend to protest their policies as well, but giving blood is not intended to be done in protest, it is merely subverting their flawed policy.

@Pix: Indeed, aside from this little mishap I'm doing fantastic, still very optimistic about the future =)

@MisterTinkles: Sort of. They actually do have a similar question for women ("Female donors: In the past 12 months have you had sexual contact with a male who has ever had
sexual contact with another male? (Males: check “I am male.”)") but, as you can see, it only stops them from giving blood for a year rather than the rest of their life. I guess that is one of the things I take major issue with. It's not like having sex with a man makes you ineligible to give blood for a year, like it does for having sex with a prostitute or with someone who you know is HIV+ (both things that I think we can all agree are far more dangerous than having gay sex), it makes you ineligible for life. This really is nothing short of "gay men can't give blood" which seems pretty obviously discriminatory. Thanks for your suggestion by the way, I will be contacting the Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

@Undreamt vs OrphanPip: Obviously I'm on Undreamt's side here. Orphan, it seems like you are implying that we should simply let the professionals decide how to handle issues like this. I say that the professionals are human beings with their own flaws and misunderstandings. Besides, this policy is an old one, and one that seems to have been perfectly legitimate when it was made I might add, but it should now be reevaluated considering the advances in science, blood testing, and the treatment of HIV/AIDS and other diseases that can be transmitted through the blood (all of these things, I might add, have significantly lowered the number of people, gay or otherwise, suffering from AIDS in America since this policy was introduced). The AIDS scare isn't what it once was. Maybe gay men are more at risk, but that doesn't mean we should not accept any gay male blood. Obviously it is possible to have a safe policy that doesn't exclude gay men for their whole lives, just look at dfiant's Australian policy.

[princealbertofb]

Mystery, all I can say, is bravo to you for addressing this issue and trying to get it changed to something a bit more rational. Obviously, we all know that money is at the heart of the matter, but maybe the money could be used more efficiently and more usefully. They try to discriminate against having to treat the blood, but that would be such a good way for people to know whether they were or were not HIV positive for a start.

They seem to think that by discriminating against certain types of people and (mostly) sexual behaviours, they will get untainted blood for their banks. Unfortunately there never seems to be enough blood to go around. So... the solution is for everyone to be able to give who has not got tainted blood and to know that, they'd have to screen the blood and let the donor know if the blood was acceptable or not. So much for anonymous donations, though.

I used to give blood, gave it about 5 more times when I was in the army (but after I'd had gay sex, oral and been treated for an STD - not HIV, maybe not from my gay sex experience, actually) so they've had my blood five times before the scare was even out there. I've not given my blood ever since. Their loss.

[Geminize]

@MysteryGuest: Thank you. I still disagree with lying in order to be able to give blood, and I especially disagree with blindly suggesting that to an anonymous internet forum. I applaud your desire to help by donating blood, and I hope the system changes to allow us to do that.

@princealberto: Donating blood in order to be tested for HIV is misguided and puts people at risk. The system is not designed for that. I encourage all sexually active people to get tested regularly. More partners? Test more often!

Originally posted by Undreamnt
Oh so if things take a long time to change its not worth fighting for? That is just bullshit.
Yes life is not fair but that doesn't mean you should just bend over. If there is something or someone trying to exclude you then the proper thing to do is fight back.

Undreamt, you seem to be reacting to each of my sentences out of context of my post and of the discussion. When I said "get used to" life being unfair, I did not mean to imply that we should accept that without a response. I encourage anyone to challenge unfair practices. There are reasons this change is going to take longer than anyone here wants, that's all.

Originally posted by Undreamnt
Why are you trying to excuse the behavior of people with illegitimate prejudiced, outdated views?
Do you really want to be an enabler for this bullshit to continue?

I disagree that it's bullshit. The ban on MSM donors was an appropriately extreme reaction to the threat of HIV to the blood supply 30 years ago. For the FDA to change that policy it needs to be damn sure that the risk of infection in blood recipients will not increase as a result. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on that. Testing of blood has improved, but it's not flawless. Donor screening still has to be part of the puzzle, and yes, there is room for improvement there.

This is a very complex and difficult issue, and the risk factors are moving targets. The rates of new HIV incidence in the US are stable or decreasing in most populations, but rising in gay/bi men (according to the CDC). For this reason alone the FDA is right to proceed with caution. It's frustrating how long it takes to establish good science on this sort of issue.

I don't believe the MSM donor ban was motivated by prejudice. It is indirectly discriminatory, I won't argue that. The people involved in the blood supply system have a huge challenge in trying to maximize the supply available and minimize the risk of many different blood borne infectious diseases. Their first duty is to the recipients of the blood, and you don't see discrimination there.