Gay blood ban is homophobic!

Homosexuals are involved in degenerate activity. That activity means the energy of their blood and it's vitality is perverse. Subtle as that may be, blood transfusions are yet another scam to degrade humans. Homosexuals are among the most degraded. Their blood is even worse for others to consume.

Originally posted by ReelView
Homosexuals are involved in degenerate activity. That activity means the energy of their blood and it's vitality is perverse. Subtle as that may be, blood transfusions are yet another scam to degrade humans. Homosexuals are among the most degraded. Their blood is even worse for others to consume.

You make me proud to be a homosexual.

*editted as I really can't be bothered...



[edit on 21-6-2010 by alien]

Originally posted by ReelView
Homosexuals are involved in degenerate activity. That activity means the energy of their blood and it's vitality is perverse. Subtle as that may be, blood transfusions are yet another scam to degrade humans. Homosexuals are among the most degraded. Their blood is even worse for others to consume.

Of course people have the right to express etherial ideas about "energies" on concrete matters. Arguably that right stops when it turns to hate speech about classes of people being "dangerous" simply by association or casual public contact - fortunately we were spared such Himmler-like statements in this post.
If one regards homosexuals as contaminating by some "energy", then one should also stay away from all inventions influenced by homosexuals like Michelangelo, Da Vinci or Alan Turing. Seemingly, considering Alan Turing, that should mean staying away from computers. If "association" means "contamination" only "heterosexual technology" should be used by your paradigm? Perhaps you should invest in the invention of breathing equipment that filters out "homosexual breath"?

A complete ban on blood transfusions is associated with closed religious groups like the Jehova's Witnesses. Mainstream religion makes no bones about labelling such groups "dangerous cults", who should be avoided. Strange how the finger always points right back.
Most infamously such groups are known for allowing their own children to die because of their teachings on blood transfusions.

I'm still wondering: what makes homosexuals degenerate? One can surely argue about statistics, like one can argue about diabetes or obesity in certain population groups. However the notion is that there is something magically and essentially wrong with homosexuals, and that goes way beyond public health debates. I assume that homosexuals include lesbians, whose blood has never been restricted?

Whatever the case with magical thinking, there is nothing uniquely degenerate about homosexuals: there is not a single sex act, behaviour or illness that is unique to homosexuals.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I can't donate blood due to the fact that I have had tattoos. I was interested in donating my cord blood after having children and that wasn't accepted because of the tattoos and any possible contamination. Even though the rate of infection from tattoos is low, I can understand where the apprehension at accepting my blood is coming from. I am not offended by it at all ... although one could argue that I chose to be tattooed.

reply to post by MotherofBlessings

Thanks for bringing up tattoos, and some others have mentioned this also.
I was wondering about this, and I thought of Pamela Anderson who got Hepatitis C that way.
So I suppose this debate goes beyond HIV and homophobia, although I still have virtually no info on the tests used, whether people are paid to give blood and so forth, because it all varies from country to country.
Are the latest, most expensive tests used?
How dated is our information, and where can we get the latest?
Do some countries have a a state-run blood bank, or are they private companies? If so, how much leeway do they have with the tests they use?
(We've heard about many exclusionary criteria, but nothing on the tests themselves, like the 12-day or fortnight tests?)



[edit on 22-6-2010 by halfoldman]

Wouldn't any gay ban be considered homophobic?

reply to post by ReelView


Are you talking about gay people or vampires?

reply to post by henriquefd

Depending on the terminology, possibly yes.
However (see my last post on p.2) some bans were instituted by pressure from gay activists (including the remaining US blood ban), because a lack of restriction for profit at a particular time led to more harm to gay communities (and others), and a restriction was less homophobic than greater harm.
Gay women were never included, and some critics would now argue that technology has advanced considerably, and the ban has become a reason in itself for homophobes to villify gay men.
"Gay" refers to an orientation, and gay men could range from highly sexually active to celibate. At least in some countries the term "men who have sex with men" (MSM) is now used. According to Wikipedia this ban applies in the US also to any woman who had sex with a man who had sex with another man since 1977. So it also applies to ex-gays (several homophobic pastors!) and women (who are banned for a year after having sex with a man who had sex with a man since 1977). It's all quite a mouthful.
Medically the screening might be sound, assuming that no test is 100% accurate. However, critics note that the ban, or its wording makes heterosexuals feel superior, to the point of ignorance. (One should consider that HIV rates in the US were 6 times higher than those of the UK by 2004, and the UK never indulged in faith-based policy experiments. Source: "Body Count: How they turned AIDS into a catastrophe", Peter Gill, 2006 p.180.)
Without forms, wording and tests it is hard to say whether a blood ban is homophobic or factually sound. I think my Wikipedia piece says that African Americans have a 47% infection rate and yet comprise 12% of the population en.wikipedia.org... So, would it be racist to ban African Americans from donating blood? Racism has now become totally unacceptable, but in pre-Civil Rights parlance the "high rate" of STDs amongst blacks was often mentioned by segregationists. So comparatively there is something terribly homophobic and denialist that is encouraged by this debate.
It seems that homophobia has become the last refuge of the bigot, and although few know anything on the blood industry itself, the issue has become a cause for homophobic ways of thinking.

Originally it was not a homophobic policy, but if we compare medical facts vs. ethereal hatred of homosexuals in this thread, then yes, it is homophobic. A whole conceptualization seems to have developed around the topic that is certainly homophobic, and may be unrelated to the history, medical intention or criteria.

(What is rather strange by the info available is that "sex" is a polite way of assuming penetration, rather than referring to anal or vaginal penetration specifically.) In the public mind it's probably a fine line between public health and collective punishment, because wrongful wording can give the impression that certain groups in society deserve exclusion, sickness and even violence. Some social scientists refer to "torturable groups" - because "experts" in society (doctors, preachers, the police) are involved in marginalising and villyfying such groups, the rest of society views discrimination agaisnt them as OK, and see whatever prejudice they harbor as justified and reinforced. So yes, there seems to be a homophobic element to this, but to what extent would take more detailed research.

[edit on 22-6-2010 by halfoldman]

Originally posted by halfoldman
reply to post by MotherofBlessings

 

Thanks for bringing up tattoos, and some others have mentioned this also.
I was wondering about this, and I thought of Pamela Anderson who got Hepatitis C that way.
So I suppose this debate goes beyond HIV and homophobia, although I still have virtually no info on the tests used, whether people are paid to give blood and so forth, because it all varies from country to country.
Are the latest, most expensive tests used?
How dated is our information, and where can we get the latest?
Do some countries have a a state-run blood bank, or are they private companies? If so, how much leeway do they have with the tests they use?
(We've heard about many exclusionary criteria, but nothing on the tests themselves, like the 12-day or fortnight tests?)

Here's some info on the tests done here in the US. I would suspect that the lists are similar in other developed regions. There is some information on the WHO website about blood donation and testing procedures in other countries here

From a study that was done from 1999-2002 in the US:

In order to narrow the infectious period (window) between the time of viral exposure and the time a virus can be serologically detected, blood centers throughout the United States are implementing nucleic acid testing (NAT) for HIV and HCV. Early studies have shown that NAT testing can significantly narrow the infectious window, particularly for HCV. There is the potential that NAT testing could completely eradicate the transfusion risk of HIV and HCV. The test is thus likely to add substantially to the safety of blood transfusions and, although not licensed, has been implemented by all blood suppliers and transfusion services in the United States. NAT testing is currently being used under an IND mechanism.

Source

And I have also found lists of test on the Red Cross website that include NAT testing for HIV, Hep B, and Hep C. Here's their list:

Blood donations are tested for the following:

* ABO and Rh blood types.
* Unexpected red blood cell antibodies that are a result of prior transfusion, pregnancy, or other factors.
* Hepatitis B surface antigen, indicating a current infection (hepatitis) or carrier state for hepatitis B virus.
* Antibody to hepatitis B core antigen, indicator of a present or past infection with the hepatitis B virus.
* Antibody to hepatitis C virus, indicating a current or past infection with hepatitis C virus (most common cause of non-A/non-B hepatitis).
* Antibody to HTLV-I/II, indicator of infection with a virus that may cause adult T-cell leukemia or neurological disease.
* Antibody to HIV-1/2, indicator of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
* Nucleic Acid Test (NAT) for hepatitis C (HCV), hepatitis B (HBV) and HIV.
* Screening test for antibodies to syphilis.
* NAT for West Nile Virus (WNV).
* Enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) test for Trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas Disease).

In addition, all platelet apheresis donations are tested for bacterial contamination.

Source

And here's the list from the American Association of Blood Banks, who do NAT testing for HIV and Hep C but not Hep B:

What tests are performed on donated blood?

After blood has been drawn, it is tested for ABO group (blood type) and Rh type (positive or negative), as well as for any unexpected red blood cell antibodies that may cause problems in a recipient. Screening tests also are performed for evidence of donor infection with hepatitis B and C viruses, human immunodeficiency viruses HIV-1 and HIV-2, human T-lymphotropic viruses HTLV-I and HTLV-II, and syphilis. While not required, blood donors are also being tested for West Nile virus. The FDA also has licensed one test for the screening of blood for Chagas' disease, but has not required that all blood products be screened.

The specific tests currently performed are listed below:

* Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)
* Hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc)
* Hepatitis C virus antibody (anti-HCV)
* HIV-1 and HIV-2 antibody (anti-HIV-1 and anti-HIV-2)
* HTLV-I and HTLV-II antibody (anti-HTLV-I and anti-HTLV-II)
* Serologic test for syphilis
* Nucleic acid amplification testing (NAT) for HIV-1 and HCV
* NAT for West Nile virus (WNV) (this test is not required by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA], the organization responsible for federally regulating the blood supply)
* Antibody test for Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of Chagas' disease (this test is also not required by FDA)

Source

The Red Cross provides about 45% of blood for transfusion in the US, and the member banks of the AABB provides about 50% of blood for transfusion. The remainder seems to be mostly collected by hospitals.

One thing I stumbled across in my Googling is this page justifying the UK's continued lifetime ban on donations by men who have had sex with men, which claims:

The last review that was taken into the Blood Service policy determined, based on statistical and epidemiological analysis of risk, that if the ban on MSM donating blood were lifted the risk of HIV entering the blood stocks would rise by 500%. They also found that if the ban was changed to only exclude men who have had sex with another man in the previous 12 months the increase would still be around 60%.

Source

Unfortunately, they don't give a link to the study so I can't go look at it myself, but if those stats are legitimate, I'm not surprised that they are scared of lifting the ban. Hopefully people are keeping a careful eye on places like Sweden, who have just lifted the lifetime ban in favor of a one-year ban.

reply to post by americandingbat

Thanks a lot for all that info - something more factual to ponder at last!
Of course there's still a lot of "implementing" and "ifs" and "buts", but at least it mentions the newer tests and where research and debate is going.
In South Africa the MSM period is six months, so it's best to keep an eye on Sweden and us.
So far this year, there have been no reported infections from blood in SA, and I listened to a recent radio interview on the topic. So the new tests appear to be working well.
I suppose that with a general population infected like ours, one can hardly have discriminating forms without running out of blood!

Generally on the web I've seen massive disjunctures between sites. The CDC orientated sites will tell people that oral sex and kissing are risk factors. Other HIV advisory sites like Medhelp completely ignore kissing and oral sex as risk factors. So it appears that some official theories include all kinds of painstaking info in their statistics.

Whatever the case, significant shifts in donors (unless there is financial reward) is unlikely.



[edit on 22-6-2010 by halfoldman]

reply to post by halfoldman

Reading some more and nice that research is going on in the US concerning the more recent tests.
I'm a bit skeptical on a 600% increase in risk, as mentioned in a link. This would imply a major shift in donor populations, and in SA these have remained pretty constant (many people have no actual desire to give blood). I'm sure other experts would not agree with this alarmist view as a possible prognosis.
Nevertheless, demographics and concentrations of gay people are very different between SA and the US.
What is good to hear though is that change, debates and studies are continuing - window periods are shorter and we are not stuck in some wierd mid-1980s time-warp on the matter.

It's definately not the last we'll hear on the debate, so it's good to be informed.
(One would also hope that the passionate care for what gay men do with their butts expressed by some posts expands into other vital areas of HIV/Aids prevention in the population, like needle exchanges, and condoms for prisoners and sex workers.)

[edit on 22-6-2010 by halfoldman]

It's ridiculous to label homosexuals as a high risk group for donating blood. Heterosexual couples are at just as high a risk if they're having unprotected sex.

I'm not sure what the rules are in the US, but here in Canada, if you're a male and have had sex with another male, protected or not, since 1976 I believe, you cannot give blood. However, a heterosexual person could have had unprotected sex with 10,000 people, and as long as it wasn't within the past 6 months, they can give blood. A prostitute could give blood as long as she hasn't had unprotected sex within the past 6 months. It's absolutely ridiculous, but luckily here in Canada they're looking at overturning the ban. It's long overdue. It's a rule that doesn't even make sense anymore.

reply to post by DantesPeak

Yes, mmm, that whole date in North America set around 1976/77 makes me think that the powers that be did something at that point they want to hide.
I'm thinking about the Hepatitis B vaccines, which are even mentioned in the official histories as unproven, but possible means of infecting a huge chunk of urban gay enclaves. Maybe it wasn't deliberate, but even the issue of innoculations in Africa, unclean needles and so forth just won't entirely go away.

Something is fishy.

Unless it's one of those very rare cases that remain negative despite repeated exposure to HIV (who don't really count for this argument) what HIV-positive man who contracted the virus in 1977 could still be a risk now? Most of them are dead, or way past the window period.
That date in itself seems irrational, and it is!

[edit on 23-6-2010 by halfoldman]