Discrimination against homosexuals carried into the 21st century

People often ask me if I'm not gay how come I pay so much attention to this issue. I pay attention to it so much and often vocal about it because despite the last 50 years of civil rights movements people are still trying to sweep certain types of discrimination under the rug and forget about it.I often donate blood every 3 months or so. Ever noticed the question about whether you've ever had sexual relation with another man? Article on student getting hatemail for being a gay activist

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Gay student gets hate mail for activism
By Matt King
Sentinel staff writer

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SANTA CRUZ ” A Harbor High School student who protested rules that outlaw gay men from donating blood is receiving hate-filled and harassing mail at the school.

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Ronnie Childers, Harbor's senior class president, said Monday he's received about 50 letters attacking his sexuality since his complaints about national blood donor rules, and his photo, were published in a Sentinel story last month. The story later attracted state and national attention.

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Some of the letters were hostile enough that Childers forwarded them to police, "just to be on the safe side"

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"There are a couple key phrases, 'I know where you go to school,'" he said. "I think adults need to understand that letters like this are inappropriate"

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The Red Cross and other blood-collection organizations have lobbied the FDA to relax the rules, which were established during the AIDS scare in the 1980s, but, so far, the FDA has resisted.

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Blood drive controversy has students seeing red

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In March, the major blood-supply organizations, including Red Cross, which says it collects about half the blood in the nation, petitioned the FDA to change the rules to allow a man who has not had sex with another man for 12 months to give blood. In a letter to the FDA, they argued that "the current lifetime deferral for men who have had sex with other men is medically and scientifically unwarranted."

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"It pretty much puts the picture in everyone's mind that you're gross," he said. "They're making gay youth seem like they're promiscuous and like we're dirty people. If they're going to have those strict regulations, they shouldn't be taken into a school."

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Here is the article on redcross's decision in 2000 about this matterThe following government article tells us some stuff about HIV infection rate...

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Background

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Women are the fastest-growing group of persons with new HIV diagnoses, accounting for 30 percent of new U.S. infections in 2001.1,2 An estimated 6000 to 7000 HIV-positive women give birth each year in the United States,3 and 280 to 370 HIV-infected infants were born in the United States annually between 1999 and 2001.4

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Perhaps straight women overall should be excluded from donating blood? Another gov fact sheet

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African American women are most likely to be infected with HIV as a result of sex with men.

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Chart explains... Perhaps black women should be excluded from donating blood?Edited by Tazmanian Devil, : No reason given.

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AKA G.A.S.B.Y.George Absolutely Stupid Bush the Younger

This is why I don't donate blood. I figure that if there is such a glut in the blood supply that they can turn down perfectly good donors, then they must not need mine.

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But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

January 2007 would be the 21st century. (Easy to miss - still no flying cars and robot butlers, I notice.)

What a weird coincidence! That's why I don't enlist in the army!

Haha, you ass. I fixed it.

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AKA G.A.S.B.Y.George Absolutely Stupid Bush the Younger

I suppose one would need to find HIV prevalence rates in homosexual men and compare them with prevalence rates in other groups who are excluded on the basis of things other than sexual orientation (i.e. drug users, hemophiliacs, etc). If this really is a question of homophobia then we would expect that the HIV prevalence in gay men is significantly lower than in the drug addicts, such that gay men must be being excluded from giving blood from reasons other than public health.I'm not sure it tells us anything to point out groups who have a higher prevalence rate but are not excluded (i.e. black women as in your example). It is possible after all that blood donation is completely misadministered without it being homophobic. To show that this is a case of homophobia I think you would need to do something similar to what i described above.Just on a side-note, I notice on the FDA website a claim:

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In a recent "HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report" CDC's states that men who have sex with men account for the largest proportion (38%) of new AIDS cases reported in the United States from 1996-1997

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SourceIt would be interesting to know how this data ties in with the data you presented in pie charts. Using these data it should be easy to calculate, for example the "efficiency" of excluding gay men - by which I mean the number of HIV infected people removed from the total pool divided by the number of people in the excluded group, or something like that. We should expect the FDA to choose the most efficient groups to exclude, and if they aren't doing that then it would be evidence of homophobia.One last thought - don't these guys test for HIV in the blood they collect? The test can reliably show HIV status after about two months since infection. So if it truly were necessary to exclude gay men, it would surely only be necessary to exclude men who have had sex in the last two months.MickMickEdited by mick, : corrected quote tag

Yes, 6-12 weeks is the usual time frame in which HIV antibodies appear, although it occasionally can take longer.I can't seem to find any information on how long blood banks sit on their donations in order to screen them for HIV or other diseases, but it must be working pretty damn well whatever they do because there haven't been any recent cases (as far as we know) of HIV transmission through the donated blood supply.Since all blood is screened (and apparently pretty accurately) I do not see the problem with donations from homo/bisexual men or from other high risk groups. Maybe the blood banks can hold certain donations a little longer for more accurate screening and that group should include anyone who has had unprotected sex of any kind within the past year (including married couples...just because you are monogamous does not necessarily mean your partner is).

According to the FDA, the risk of transfusion transmission of HIV is "one unit per 2 million donations" - that is, 0.0000005 per unit of blood used in a transfusion. In comparison, the probability of being killed by a car this year in the US is 0.00015.You know, the easiest way of solving this question is to look at Switzerland and Spain, two countries which allow gay men to donate blood. Unfortunately I am unable to find any data on HIV transmission in transfusions in these countries. I'll wager that their HIV transmission is at similar levels to any other country but let's see if I can turn up any data.Mick

The data you presented is almost a decade old.

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AKA G.A.S.B.Y.George Absolutely Stupid Bush the Younger

Sure, I just noticed that sexual orientation was missing from the pie charts, and surely that is central to the issue isn't it?If we are going to exclude a group then by definition its going to be unfair on members of that group who feel they're all painted with one brush, and naturally desire an individualized treatment from the health authorities. For example drug addicts who always use clean needles might want to give blood and feel it unfair, silly and discriminatory that they're not allowed to do so.But I can understand declaring a group persona non grata for efficiency reasons - say, the cost of individual testing is outweighed by the relatively high HIV prevalence in that group, so it's cheaper and more efficient to exclude the whole group without individual testing. That is precisely the decision that has been made for drug users.If we're going to exclude groups at all, then the only justifiable reason for it is this kind of efficiency calculation. The efficiency calculation depends upon a) how frequently HIV is found in the group and b) what is the residual number of non-infected potential donors who will be unnecessarily excluded as part of the group.You can only answer this question if you know a) how many gay men have HIV;and b) how many gay men who wish to give blood and are free of HIV are unable to do so because of the blanket ban. My personal feeling is that the blanket ban is silly, but on the other hand I don't think that excluding a group per se means discrimination against that group. Excluding drug addicts is (presumably) a public health choice based on these kinds of calculations. If you use needles there's a relatively high chance you have HIV, and there is a relatively small pool of heroin addicts who wish to donate. It would be "drugophobia" if the policy is enacted solely because the populace will be happier if they think that drug addicts can't donate because they're "sinful". But it's not "drugophobia" if it's done just to keep the costs of the service down.In principle I see no reason whatsoever why these kinds of calculations should not be made for other groups defined by sexual orientation or whatever. Whether it amounts to discrimination depends on two things: first, is the exclusion is justified by the cost-benefit analysis? second, are the groups based on real, existing epidemiological clusters, or are they based on prejudice?Finally, a note on the pie charts you provided. The area of the pie is proportional the percentage of new cases of HIV diagnosed from 2001-2004. These proportions do NOT correspond to the prevalence of HIV in those groups. 50% of new HIV diagnoses in 2004 were african american, while 1% of new HIV diagnoses were Asian/Pacific Islander. This does not mean that african americans are 50 times more likely to have HIV than asians, because the number of new diagnoses is not scaled by population size! These pie charts tell us nothing about what groups might be sensibly excluded from donating blood unless they are combined with demographic data.MickEdited by mick, : No reason given.

No, that's not the central issue.Back in the 50's, if black people protested certain laws by drinking out of the same drinking fountain as white people, was it because the central issue was that they wanted to drink out of the same drinking fountain as the white people?No, of course not. The central issue was something bigger. Let's look at it this way, society used to exclude black people from voting because many deemed they lacked the intellectual capacity to vote for the right candidates. Many argued that if black people were permitted to vote, then what's to stop monkeys and gorrillas from voting?I know what you're trying to get at, but it is essentially the same line of thought as what I just pointed out. Two entirely different situations. You can't equate people's sexual orientation with people's choice of hobby (using drugs). I don't think it's necessarily cheaper. Nowadays, every blood sample is tested for just about every disease known to man. Again, the central issue isn't about giving blood just as the central issue wasn't about drinking out of the same drinking fountain as whites. Hell, would those niggas stop protesting if we tell them they could drink out of our drinking fountains? I don't think in this case the discrimination is on the part of the FDA. I think the FDA is just being political. The discrimination part is on the general public, who still view AIDS as strictly a gay plague.Again, around every election time I have to drive by church signs that say "AIDS is god's punishment for gay people" and all that crap everyday. The fact that the student activist got hate mails for wanting to give blood should tell you that it's a bigger problem than just the FDA or the giving blood issue. Well, those pie charts weren't meant to be read by themselves. They are but a piece of the puzzle. That's why I provided so many links. If you'd bothered to look at the links I provided, you'd see the demographic data as well.Added by edit.The reason I said the discrimination isn't necessarily on the part of the FDA because of something from one of the links I gave.

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After much deliberation, the BPAC members voted 7 to 6 to maintain the current deferral policy.

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Haley also stressed to the committee that the decision to uphold the lifetime ban on men who have had sex with other men should be based on scientific evidence, not societal pressures.

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Edited by Tazmanian Devil, : No reason given.

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AKA G.A.S.B.Y.George Absolutely Stupid Bush the Younger

(Article excerpt/ the three levels of philosophy Oops, something lost )

That presupposes that they have a @#$%ing clue what "God's purpose" is.

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It is amazing how lacking in basic and obvious science our young people are today...The term sex finds it's context in the concept of reproduction. Some creatures are asexual. Some are heterosexual. And of course their are others...Human beings are heterosexual. I thought you knew that. Genesis 5:2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man."as an aside: Isn't it amazing also, that God called man and woman... man (or in the Hebrew, 'Adam'). It was only after sin entered the picture that the male decided to give his wife a diferent name from his own and rule over her.

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According to the Bible, God created them equal, and both revealed His whole character.

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Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Clearly not, or we wouldn't be having this discussion.Don't confuse one purpose with "only" purpose.

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