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+--- Thread: Orlando massacre prompts call to ease gay blood donor rules (/thread-2503.html)
Orlando massacre prompts call to ease gay blood donor rules - C C - Jun 14, 2016
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2093461-orlando-massacre-prompts-call-to-ease-gay-blood-donor-rules/
EXCERPT: Blood banks in Orlando have been deluged with donors [...] But in the wake of the shootings [...] some campaigners and researchers have challenged current US guidelines on donation that preclude gay men from giving blood unless they have been celibate for a whole year. [...] “The revised policy is still discriminatory,” says the National Gay Blood Drive in a statement, a group campaigning for relaxation of the FDA guidelines. “While gay and bisexual men will be eligible to donate their blood and help save lives under this 12-month deferral, countless more will continue to be banned solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, and without medical or scientific reasoning.” It added that it favours a system where each donor is assessed individually....
RE: Orlando massacre prompts call to ease gay blood donor rules - Magical Realist - Jun 15, 2016
It's a grossly inappropriate stigma that has no business in any part of the medical field. I wasn't even out when I tried to donate blood in the Navy. The questionaire asked: "Have you ever had sex a man." It was outraged. We were checked every year for HIV in the service. There was no reason for this sort of passive-aggressive witchhunt of gay people. So fine I say. You're not ever getting a drop of my blood. Ever!