Matt Gurney: Upholding gay blood ban awkward, but correct

[Whisper]

This week, the Ontario Superior Court ruled against Kyle Freeman, a gay man who had challenged the right of Canadian Blood Services (CBS) to refuse to accept blood donations from any man that has ever had sex with another man. Freeman, who had lied on his donation forms while donating blood in contravention of the ban, was also ordered to pay $10,000 to CBS for filing false paperwork.

Canada’s gay community has laboured long and hard to achieve deserved recognition of their equality. But the CBS’s ban on donations from gay males is not in any way an issue of homophobia, it’s one of differing medical opinions. In choosing to continue to refuse donations from gay men, CBS is airing on the side of caution to protect our blood supply, a vital national medical resource.

Past incidences of people slandering homosexuals as immoral and unclean can make it awkward, or politically suicidal, to address the difficult fact that while HIV/AIDS now afflicts every segment of our society, over half of the new cases reported in Canada each year are a result of sexual acts between male partners. That’s triple the rate from intravenous drug use. HIV/AIDS is not, as it was originally claimed by many, a gay disease, but it remains a disease that hits the gay community with disproportionate lethality.

Indeed, after years of decline, over the past decade, the rate of new infections among young gay men has begun to trend upwards, attributed by some experts to the fact there is today a whole new generation of young men engaging in sexual activity with other men who did not live through the traumatizing decimation of the gay community by AIDS that occurred in the 1980s. While they have been taught about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, they do not have the visceral, horrifying experience the survivors of the past epidemic do.

None of the above should be taken as a broad-based criticism of gays or an attack on their virtue or morality. But nor should the stats, collected from Health Canada and the Canadian AIDS Society, be ignored. While it may be impolitic to say it, men who engage in sex with men are indeed a high-risk group for the transmission of HIV/AIDS, relative to society as a whole. That responsible, healthy gay men should be denied the chance to donate blood on this basis is certainly unfair and no doubt hurtful, but is still justified.

It might not always be so. Many doctors argue that vastly improved medical screening techniques render the origin of the blood irrelevant, that the post-donation testing alone can determine what blood is safe and what is not. This seems logical and would certainly be more fair, but the decision of when the testing is reliable enough to secure the supply 100% of the time must come from CBS itself, not from the courts or from incensed gay men. The CBS does not yet feel there to be sufficient medical proof for that premise. Any attempts to rush CBS into changing their medically defensible polices in the name of political correctness must be resisted.

National Post

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Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/09/10/matt-gurney-upholding-gay-blood-ban-awkward-but-correct/#ixzz0zC3G1wkB

[CuriousDestruction]

look, you can say it's not homophobia as much as you want but the fact is, we are in short supply of blood. and as you say, it's a vital resource. the bottom line is, i would rather receive gay blood, than die.

[Mzor203]

CBS is airing on the side of caution to protect our blood supply, a vital national medical resource.

I lol'd. GG editors.

But seriously, I don't see why people can't just move on from past states of mind. This is really just silly. If someone has AIDS and you have any type of sex with them, you get it, doesn't matter if it's gay or not. Having gay sex does not magically spawn AIDS.

[The Joker]

For fucks sake. Anyone with AIDS can have sex with another person, regardless of the gender of any of them.

Should they start banning anyone who has ever had sex? Same risk level.

[deadpie]

I find it quite embarrassing how America and some other places still hasn't gotten over that not everyone is straight and how we still have such stupid morals.

And what curiousdestruction said sums my opinions up pretty well.

[Whisper]

This week, the Ontario Superior Court ruled against Kyle Freeman, a gay man who had challenged the right of Canadian Blood Services (CBS) to refuse to accept blood donations from any man that has ever had sex with another man. Freeman, who had lied on his donation forms while donating blood in contravention of the ban, was also ordered to pay $10,000 to CBS for filing false paperwork.

Canada’s gay community has laboured long and hard to achieve deserved recognition of their equality. But the CBS’s ban on donations from gay males is not in any way an issue of homophobia, it’s one of differing medical opinions. In choosing to continue to refuse donations from gay men, CBS is airing on the side of caution to protect our blood supply, a vital national medical resource.

Past incidences of people slandering homosexuals as immoral and unclean can make it awkward, or politically suicidal, to address the difficult fact that while HIV/AIDS now afflicts every segment of our society, over half of the new cases reported in Canada each year are a result of sexual acts between male partners. That’s triple the rate from intravenous drug use. HIV/AIDS is not, as it was originally claimed by many, a gay disease, but it remains a disease that hits the gay community with disproportionate lethality.

Indeed, after years of decline, over the past decade, the rate of new infections among young gay men has begun to trend upwards, attributed by some experts to the fact there is today a whole new generation of young men engaging in sexual activity with other men who did not live through the traumatizing decimation of the gay community by AIDS that occurred in the 1980s. While they have been taught about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, they do not have the visceral, horrifying experience the survivors of the past epidemic do.

None of the above should be taken as a broad-based criticism of gays or an attack on their virtue or morality. But nor should the stats, collected from Health Canada and the Canadian AIDS Society, be ignored. While it may be impolitic to say it, men who engage in sex with men are indeed a high-risk group for the transmission of HIV/AIDS, relative to society as a whole. That responsible, healthy gay men should be denied the chance to donate blood on this basis is certainly unfair and no doubt hurtful, but is still justified.

It might not always be so. Many doctors argue that vastly improved medical screening techniques render the origin of the blood irrelevant, that the post-donation testing alone can determine what blood is safe and what is not. This seems logical and would certainly be more fair, but the decision of when the testing is reliable enough to secure the supply 100% of the time must come from CBS itself, not from the courts or from incensed gay men. The CBS does not yet feel there to be sufficient medical proof for that premise. Any attempts to rush CBS into changing their medically defensible polices in the name of political correctness must be resisted.


When I first found out that gays aren't allowed to donate I was FURIOUS and I still believe that its retarded, that we should be focusing on increasing screening procedures not on being finicky with who can and cannot donate especially given the severe blood shortage. But you also have to look at it from their side; it is a fact that the gay community does carry a disproportionately higher rate of infection (lesbians carry the lowest i believe), and I remember a few years ago when it was discovered that a huge batch of blood was indeed infected and had been given to patients during surgery, it infected allot of people. So I do understand their reservations.


Ultimately the ideal solution would be developing a way to create synthetic blood in a lab, you could mass produce it, there would never be shortages, it would be of universal acceptance accross all blood types, nor would there be scares of tainted blood. But thats not realistic for the time being.

[Sith Lord 13]

Ultimately the ideal solution would be developing a way to create synthetic blood in a lab, you could mass produce it, there would never be shortages, it would be of universal acceptance accross all blood types, nor would there be scares of tainted blood. But thats not realistic for the time being.

We can and do, it's just cost prohibitive.

[The Joker]

Ultimately the ideal solution would be developing a way to create synthetic blood in a lab, you could mass produce it, there would never be shortages, it would be of universal acceptance accross all blood types, nor would there be scares of tainted blood. But thats not realistic for the time being.

Or society can just get over it's internalized homophobia.

[Nicky97]

We can and do, it's just cost prohibitive.
So this IS about money. I was wondering as I was reading the thread. I was thinking that it costs too much money to test all donated blood for HIV and they didnt really want blood that badly. Say what you want, the world runs on supply and demand.

I understand its not about homophobia. Its about science and money. Still offensive.

[The Batman]

We can and do, it's just cost prohibitive.

The only information I found on that is that they are just recently starting to create red cells from stem cells but they still can't mass produce it.


I lied when I tried to donate blood and said that I didn't have sex with a man probably wasn't an honest thing to do but I know I'm clean of any diseases. Why not just give an HIV/AIDS test to those that want to give blood?

[Whisper]

The guy that did that in the article paid $10,000.
hope you don't get caught.

[ShatteredWings]

The guy that did that in the article paid $10,000.
hope you don't get caught.

how the hell could they prove it?

[The Batman]

No way I could get caught since my veins were to small and deep for them to get any blood out of.

[Perseus]

The only information I found on that is that they are just recently starting to create red cells from stem cells but they still can't mass produce it.


I lied when I tried to donate blood and said that I didn't have sex with a man probably wasn't an honest thing to do but I know I'm clean of any diseases. Why not just give an HIV/AIDS test to those that want to give blood?

HIV tests take like a tear and sometimes it can't be picked up on a test because you have too small of an amount of it.

[Sith Lord 13]

HIV tests ... sometimes it can't be picked up on a test because you have too small of an amount of it.

This is the real issue. You can come up clean on a test for up to six months after being infected. It's about safety. Intravenous drug users are also banned from giving blood, for the same reason.

[Church]

Kinda weird, I'm in America and donated blood and they asked if you've have sex with another guy recently but I don't think they decline. They prob like keep a closer watch on it cause of the history of gays and Aids. But who knows what Canadialand is thinking.

[Whisper]

Kinda weird, I'm in America and donated blood and they asked if you've have sex with another guy recently but I don't think they decline. They prob like keep a closer watch on it cause of the history of gays and Aids. But who knows what Canadialand is thinking.

"Canadialand" interesting.

Red Cross blood donation policies discriminate against gay people.
It's important to understand that blood safety is a public health issue, not a social policy issue. The Red Cross is required by law to follow all Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines and recommendations for the blood industry, including the current deferral of men who have had sex with other men. Along with other members of the blood banking industry, the Red Cross supports a data-based reconsideration of deferral criteria.

Source = http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d229a5f06620c6052b1ecfbf43181aa0/?vgnextoid=d8b0f0454556e110VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD&vgnextchannel=477859f392ce8110VgnVCM10000030f3870aRCRD

Its not accepted in the states either.

[Church]

Hmm, weird I suppose. I'm sure they got a reason though.

[ShatteredWings]

Hmm, weird I suppose. I'm sure they got a reason though.

That is some of the stupidest logic I've ever heard. You HONESTLY believe the US (and Canadian) governments really have the best interest of the people in mind?
If you do, I'm sorry but I pity you for having so little question for authority. Most "humanitarian" efforts are a joke. This ban on gay men donating blood is simply upholding outdated stereotypes of homosexuality and promoting homophobia in the government, saying that their by nature more infected than other social groups in the population.

This isn't ROTW and I'm not in the mood to look up stats, so I'll stop there.

However, I did lol at 'canadialand'