Er, so we’re supposed to get angry that an evidence-led approach has been taken to protect blood recipients from a known threat?

Yurrzem, I think the point being made is that you shouldn’t discriminate on gay men because of assumptions that they’re all the same. Even if “evidence”, for sake of argument, showed that gay men were more likely to carry HIV than straight men, tarnishing them all with the same brush is illiberal. A promiscuous straight man is more likely to be a danger than a monogomous gay man, yet the monogomous gay man would still be banned. Shocking.

How sad that Labour chose to remove the reference to gay and bi discrimination from the motion.

I kinda agree with both 1 and 2, in the past it was gay men and intraveonous drug users who were most at risk of HIV.

It does seems a precaution based on predjudice, but the onoy fair alternative is to check every drop for HIV, which would result in no donations as the infrastructure doesnt exist.

Maybe not fair but needs investigating.

I noticed in the past that the rules seem very harsh on gay men. They say that if a man has ever had oral or anal sex with another man, even just once and even using a condom, then you are *permanently* excluded from giving blood.

In contrast, if you’ve had sex with a prostitute, then you are excluded for 12 months, not permanently.

Surely, all those who give blood should be tested, gay men are not the only people who can catch aids.

So much for Labour being the “progressive” party. What would Cath Elliott say?

@5 Im sure they screen all blood anyway for HIV, this obviously means it’s not fool proof

All blood samples are screened for AIDS; unfortunately no screening process is 100% effective. There’s always a possibility of a false positive or a false negative. That’s why they need to remove high-risk groups: they need to cut down the possibility of those false negatives.

But their priorities in doing so are all out of whack. Sure, homosexuals, as a whole, are a slightly higher-risk group. *Slightly*. But there are other far more important factors which increase risk: whether people use barrier methods, whether people are monogamous, and so on. These are being given far less weight, for no apparent reason other than “that’s the way we’ve always done it”.

The blood service does test all donations for HIV

https://secure.blood.co.uk/c11_cant.asp

Their justification is that testing may not pick up early stages of infection but that hardly fits in with a permanent ban on donating.

It’s all a bit odd tbh.

The headline does not seem to be absolutely accurate. What the amendment has done is not to endorse the current blanket ban, but to support the review which the Department of Health ordered. In any case NBTS policy is a national issue and not a local only, so the appropriate body to comment on it is Parliament and not an individual local authority.

How do they know if someone is gay when taking blood from them? Is it a don’t ask don’t tell policy?

@11 – No they ask, as well if if you have had sex with anyone from africa in the last twelve months, took intravenous frugs or had a tattoo

PS – Winners dont use frugs

How do they know if someone is gay when taking blood from them?

You have to fill in a fairly detailed questionnaire about your lifestyle, sexual history, medical history, travel history, etc. Of course they can’t know if you simply decide to lie, but there’s an assumption of honesty.

“PS – Winners dont use frugs”

Except in Cycling where you sort of have to.

#12 & #14

I’ve never given blood – have intended to a few times but always ended up having something significant where I can’t risk feeling drained the same day. Having found that out I wouldn’t want to though. I’d feel I was collaborating in homophobic discrimination.

re the sex with someone from Africa bit – if your long-term partner is from Africa and you have a monogamous relationship with them, does that rule you out from donating blood permanently? If so then clearly the rules are just as racist as they are sexist. (Also would that mean that if you’re not from Africa but they are, they could give blood but you couldn’t?)

damn the lack of edit – meant homophobic rather than sexist above. Sure that says something about my privilege.

I’d feel I was collaborating in homophobic discrimination.

I agree that the rules are unfair, but this doesn’t strike me as a reasonable reaction, to be honest. It’s not comparable to supporting an unethical private company. The blood service is just a bureaucracy for getting blood from donors to those who need it. A blood donation is not a vote in its favour any more than having your bin emptied is a gesture of support to your local council. A boycott is a terrible idea, as it would only hurt very ill people.

if your long-term partner is from Africa and you have a monogamous relationship with them, does that rule you out from donating blood permanently

No, that would be fine. The rule is to do with having sex in places where HIV is common, or at one remove, having sex with people who have had sex in such places. In any case the bar is for 12 months rather than permanent.

#19

Some reasonable points.

However I’m not suggesting a boycott. (I’m not generally sympathetic to the idea of boycotts anyway.) However, my natural reaction to having to fill in a form like that would be “well, I’m not sure I want to do this after all”. By having the rules it does, the blood service is putting off people who can actually give the “correct” answers to their questions, as well as refusing blood from gay people who are very unlikely to have HIV. Yes, not being complicit in their discrimination does mean ill people get less blood. But that’s a consequence of the blood service’s decision to enforce the rules they do. Your argument seems to me to be close to the argument that public sector workers like teachers, NHS workers and prison officers should never go on strike whatever they are being asked to accept.

At any rate, the existing rules refuse a lot more blood from potential donors than I would be able to give them, so I don’t think they’re in a position to complain.

@16 – It may be homophobic discrimation in the rules of the centre, but if you want to give blood do. It may be used to save a gay african drug addicts life one day.

Which is worth offending your sensibilities (however noble) I think.

I don’t believe that filling in the form and giving blood amount to complicity in discrimination. At least, put it this way, to no greater extent than accepting a blood transfusion is also tantamount to complicity. If you needed one, would you refuse it on principle?

#22 & #23

Again, good points. Would I refuse a blood transfusion? I sincerely doubt it. I’m not sure if it’s exactly the same as filling in the form yourself, though.

On balance with time to reflect, I’ll probably end up agreeing with you that better to donate than not. But if I didn’t know in advance that I was going to have to fill in that form, and was about to give blood, I’d probably refuse and take some time to think about it then come back another time, rather than be bounced into doing something I might rather not do.

I still think my point stands that the rules as they exist send out a message that they’re not that desperate for blood, otherwise they would not have rules that stop people who are unlikely to have HIV from donating it. Again thinking on an emotional rather than purely intellectual level, I would probably be more likely to think of giving blood as a priority if the message being sent out was that the need is urgent & they needed blood from everyone.

Actually thinking about the Africa question, it is possible to come up with a possible scenario….vSuppose you are in a monogamous relationship with someone from Africa, and suppose that your partner (in the distant past) did have sex whilst living there. Then I guess you would theoretically be disbarred (not permanently, but from 12 months from the last time you had sex with your partner which would probably amount to the same thing).

I should add though, that I believe the staff at donation centres are allowed to exercise their discretion, and I very much expect that if you explained the situation you would be accepted.

Incidentally this is not the first time I’ve quarrelled with the rules for blood donation. In the past the questionnaire used to ask whether you’d “ever injected or been injected with drugs”. Well, as a pedant I figured that I’d had a dental anaesthetic adminstered before a tooth extraction, so what was I supposed to write? I exercised my own discretion and ticked “no” and later wrote to the blood service. The phrasing of the question later changed to something slightly more accurate (I think whether you’ve ever “injected yourself with drugs”), a development for which I am claiming credit.

The actions of Nottingham Council are quite disgraceful.

What are they doing wasting their time and my money passing motions about World Blood Donor Day when all they are required to do is pick up the bins on the correct day, a task that is seemingly beyond them?

@25 – Larry can you come up with a manmade system that couldn’t be broken by dreaming up an elaborate scenario?

Dave, no I agree. That Africa scenario is just loopholing for my own entertainment. It’s best to keep the questions simple, and trust the staff to interpret the answers sensibly.

“The UK Blood Service is currently reviewing its policy in relation to gay men donating blood.”

Excellent, so the specialist national body responsible for all of this is currently looking into the question. They will, no doubt, be guided by the very best possible scientific evidence (for, of course, the very argument in favour of having government at all is that this is true, no?).

So what’s all the fuss about? Surely you’re not trying to make a political question out of what is a scientific one, are you?

@29 Tim W

When you don’t talk about economics I agree with you.

All this appears to be is, as I said, an evidence-led approach. Policy was based on the old findings that HIV was more common amongst gay men and intravenous drug users. This should be re-examined as things might have changed. Its an example of evidence-based policy in a very important area.

The fact that Sunny feels this should be seen as political dismays me. Its simplistic undergrad level leftism that is as pointless as a postmodern analysis of Voltaire’s wig from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, IE crap.

You are right (in other threads) that economics is important. The corollory is that this simplistic guff is only important in that it degrades the debate that the Left should be having: Its The Economy Stupid. Time for an alternative economic perspective. I’m starting with David Harvey now.

Contaminated blood has serious, and lifelong consequences for unlucky recipients – such incidents have resulted in several ‘TAINTED’ blood scandals;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainted_blood_scandal

Don’t forget there are additioal risks associated with procedural errors;
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23431619-more-britons-in-blood-scandal.do

Here is the current advice from the National Blood service regarding those who are not permitted to donate;
https://secure.blood.co.uk/c11_cant.asp

The Terence Higgin’s Trust endorses the EVIDENCE BASED STANCE adopted by the SaBTO
http://www.tht.org.uk/informationresources/policy/healthpolicy/blooddonations
http://www.dh.gov.uk/ab/SaBTO/index.htm

Given the well documented problems associated with contaminated blood I do not think donation can be seen as a straightforward issue, neither should the necessary scientific processes be undermined by simplistic political sloganeering?

Once again, the leftist idiots make fools of themselves by failing to recognise that discrimination is fine, dandy, and generally good, and that it’s only *unjustified* discrimination that matters.

The only question is whether the right question is being asked to justifiably discriminate between those who are good subjects for blood donation and those who are not.

I have never given blood. It’s not something I’m proud of and it’s not that I’m boycotting the service. It’s because I have heard that it asks very intimate questions and I don’t know whether my answers would result in being refused. I’m a pretty shy person and I don’t really want my sex life to be analysed.

So yes, having these sort of questions does put people off, even if they might qualify to give blood. I’m not saying that people like me shouldn’t give blood, just pointing out that they don’t.