Comments on: Gay men could be subject to five-year ban on blood donation

By: Brighton John

Brighton John — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:56:14 +0000

There are currently well over 90 viruses classified as HIV. Which is tested for?
Each time a patient turns up with AIDS and the test shows HIV negative, they serach for another and dub it a mutation. There are millions of viruses out there, so it’s no big problem and how could he have AIDS without having “the virus”?
Gay men are constantly exhorted to get tested for HIV. Gay publications are full of ads for this. Well-funded trusts exist with the sole aim of battling HIV and helping people found to be positive. Do you think the officers of these foundations want to lose their jobs and the perquisites that go with them?
This scare means far more gay men get tested than any other group, so, accordingly, more or them are found to be HIV positive. I am convinced that if nuns were thus targeted and persuaded to be tested they would form a large “risk group”, because in my opinion the retroviruses are pretty evenly distributed throughout the population, but who is testing housewives, nuns, fathers of families?
I seem to remember that one of the first people to contract AIDS in the US was indeed a nun. One of the first in Germany was the wife of a farmer who insisted she never even visited the nearest city, being too busy with the farm, here she had charge of … wait for it … the pesticides and fertilizers, i.e. nitrates. You gay men, does that word sound familiar?
This whole thing is a phoney construct, a nephew of mine in South Africa went to donate blood one day and was asked whether he was homosexual. He said he was, whereupon he was told he could not donate. Next in line was a black woman. No questions were asked. Yet HIV is supposedly more prevalent among black women there than among gay white males.
This tells me something about what the whole thing is about. I think John Lauritsen (google him) gets pretty near the truth.

By: Jean-Paul Bentham

Jean-Paul Bentham — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:23:42 +0000

Daniel:

Dah. I think so!

“Since 1985, there have only been two cases of patients contracting HIV through a blood transfusion.”

- PinkNews:’Public meeting to be held today on gay blood ban’ by Jessica Geen, Oct 27, 2009.”

The phrase, “Much ado about nothing” comes to mind.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:32:45 +0000

I’m not really informed about these things but isn’t all donated blood tested before being given to the recipient therefore it wouldn’t matter if it was infected it would be screened anyway?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:55:18 +0000

Yeah Stevie C, that’s exactly how the HIV infection rates are worked out. Asking people if they think they have it. . .

By: Jean-Paul Bentham

Jean-Paul Bentham — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:34:28 +0000

“Since 1985, there have only been two cases of patients contracting HIV through a blood transfusion.”

- PinkNews:’Public meeting to be held today on gay blood ban’ by Jessica Geen, Oct 27, 2009.

More people are die in car accidents in a week than from tainted blood in 25 years. Cars should be banned for 5 years.

Then there are domestic terrorists, e.g. homophobes.

By: Stevie C

Stevie C — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:26:41 +0000

the statistics are flawed; a gay man only goes down to the GUM clinic/doc’s surgery if they think/know they’ve got the disease. and as everyone is assumed hetero until they say otherwise, the only gay people on the records will be people with the disease, or the few who thought they had it but don’t. a gay man who knows he doesnt have the disease (via abstinence etc) isn’t going to go to the docs to say “i’m gay, just for the record”.

if 10 gay men think they have hiv, and 9 actually do, thats 90% infection rate. if 10 str8s think they do, and because eberyone is assumed str8 until they say otherwise, that’ll add up to 0.0000000000000000000002% infection rate.

By: BastiaanStuifzand_Holland

BastiaanStuifzand_Holland — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:13:16 +0000

I still do not understand the gay men discrimination.. it sucks. In the Netherlands gay men were banned from donating as well. don’t know if it still is like that. What about all men and woman who have multiple partners but keep that secret, I think that can be a higher risk then the few gay men that really are practicing unprotected sex and should want to donate blood.. They better start arguing about testing all blood donors in advance men and women,.. then they have security now its just a enormous waste of time and waste of healthy blood also from gay men..

By: Lucius Malfoy

Lucius Malfoy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:16:50 +0000

This is more sickening homophobia. Statistically black people in the U.S. are at higher rate for HIV than whites, so since viruses are not “politically correct” as Dr. Richard Tedder says, they ought to ban black people from donating blood in the U.S.
These people are also out of touch with reality if they think that closeted straight men who have unprotected sex with men on the downlow aren’t donating blood. To heed the warning they would be admitting to themselves that they’ve been having sex with men, and thus aren’t likely to be honest.
This is just another case of people justifying their homophobia and we have to wait until the current generation of doctors dies out before we’ll get any change.

By: Dave North

Dave North — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:21:41 +0000

Have you ever noticed that on SKY their is 2 gay channels and dozens of “Dirty Wife Swap”, “Red Hot Amateurs” “Red Hot Wifes”, “Bad Wives 3: Dirty Threesomes” etc channels.

I’ve just checked, and there is.

Whereby lies the filthy dirty unclean gays.

All those who seek thrills in clubs pubs and public toilets, gay or straight. Exercise some self control.

Just stop tarring the rest of us with your own brush.

By: andi

andi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:23:07 +0000

Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, what bloody mess?!

By: Jean-Paul Bentham

Jean-Paul Bentham — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:58:46 +0000

I never thought of that!

By: Voidal

Voidal — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:51:42 +0000

It’s homophobia plain and simple. Saying a man who has ever had sex – protected or otherwise, monogamously or not – with another man can never give blood can only be based on a hatred or loathing of male gay sex.

This fits in with the stereotypical view of gays as immoral, sinful, unclean contaminants who are liable to infect the rest of society with their dirty sodomizing ways.

The mere act of having gay sex is, to those of an anti-gay inclination, the source of all evil: hence just by engaging in male-male sex, you are banned for life from donating blood.

Or maybe now for a mere 5 years!

A 5 year ban still keeps out practising gays – surely the goal of those who draw up these rules.

It comes down to classifying all gays as evil and filthy, instead of individuals engaging in risky behaviour.

The distinction is important and damaging to self-respecting gay men who do not partake in orgies, do not have sex with a different stranger every day, do not go cottaging, do not meet in toilets for anonymous sex, and do not wish to have any part in the unethically false stereotype of the predatorial, hedonistic gay monster.

The majority of gay men are normal people. Being gay doesn’t automatically make you a sex crazed lunatic, screwing everyone in sight without any regard to your own safety.

But that’s the impression this blood ban gives off.

It could have been written by the Pope himself.

By: Voidal

Voidal — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:38:36 +0000

It’s clear that only those who are pathologically inclined to hate themselves, in the manner of other minorities who suffer self-hatred, are in favour of the ban.

Defending this ban or a 5 year ban is madness. Risky behaviour of either gender and practise (male-male, male-female, female-female) should be banned in line with the current deferral of 12 months, so any STDs can be picked up.

Banning a man who has sex with another man for 5 years for giving blood is crazy. Why 5 years?

Bigotry is the answer.

By: Bubble

Bubble — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:53:10 +0000

Martin, I suppose that its a case as said for blood donation screening according to their individual behaviour, rather than basing specifications on whole groups. It may seem impracticable to some, but at least its bot discriminatory towards one sector of the population who’s infection rate increase (correct me if I’m wrong) is not as steep as with straights worldwide.

By: Jean-Paul Bentham

Jean-Paul Bentham — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:25:46 +0000

“Since 1985, there have only been two cases of patients contracting HIV through a blood transfusion.”

- ‘Public meeting to be held today on gay blood ban’ by Jessica Geen, Oct 27, 2009.

By: Jean-Paul Bentham

Jean-Paul Bentham — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:11:07 +0000

Martin:

Good man; now you’re talking scientifically.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:05:43 +0000

Can we PLEASE get back to the discussion. Seriously, Mark. If you can’t contribute, then f*** off. You’re a petty bitch, and no one is interested any longer. Grow up. Move on.

Bubble, I agree. But how do you enforce a ban on promiscuous heterosexuals? If that was the case they woudl have no blood. But I see your point, to isolate one section of society as a risk above another which is also a risk, is discriminatory.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:00:42 +0000

“Jean-Paul, don’t take this the wrong way, but: LOL”

WTF????

Er, hello…. bitch. Noting to “LOL” about there.

By: Jean-Paul Bentham

Jean-Paul Bentham — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:59:45 +0000

Mark & Hart:

You are way out of your league.

Please don’t take that the wrong way; what I mean is please stay away from my death bed, Daffy Duck.

By: Bubble

Bubble — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:58:55 +0000

Jean Paul Bentham, Will, and Martin, you are right. This is a serious issue, enough to ignore those two trolls and get talking about the ban in real terms.

A lot of people have made some good points. Mark and H-whats-his-name I don’t include you both as you have been quite rude. But I do see a conflict between the need to provide safe blood wit the need to be realistic about HIV infections among straights. If blood is banned from gay men, or men who have sex with men, then surely this should apply to straights who have had more than one partner in the last year or whatever? I do agree this is discriminatory and a throwback to the days when it was a gay disease. And I don’t need to read a lot of HIV statistics to believe that.