Great news, do-gooding homosexual Britons: The blood police are going to let you give up your O-negatives and your AB-positives and your plasma! Well, so long as you’ve been celibate for 10 years.
Britain’s health minister Anne Milton will soon announce revised rules for donating blood that let gay men enter the mix. But there’s one big asterisk: only gay men who have not had gay sex within the past 10 years are eligible to get a needle stuck in their arm. You know, because you’re all HIV-carrying monsters, and health officials simply don’t know how to properly screen for improprieties. Also, because having butt sex with another dude three years ago, or eight years, or nine years, still makes you a risk factor!
It’s been a change year’s in the making. (See our 2009 post: “Britain Ready to Admit: No Good to Reason to Ban Gay Blood Donors.” With data showing that only two people in the U.K. have been infected with HIV via blood transfusions since 1985 (you know, when AIDS scares were all the rage), the ban on gay blood has long been viewed as outdated, discriminatory, and even malicious.
But why the 10-year hurdle?
How about we take this to the next level?
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The changes were instigated by Sabto, the advisory committee on the safety of blood, tissues and organs, which had concluded that if the ban were replaced by a new rule preventing gay men from giving blood for five years after having sex with another man, the risk of HIV reaching the blood supply would go up by less than 5%. It is estimated that this figure would halve if the “deferral” period were increased to 10 years, so ministers backed this option. The 10-year delay also ensures that people who are not aware they have contracted HIV do not pass it on accidentally.
Which means after the new rules take effect, the only gay men who will be able to legally donate blood will be … priests.
TheRealAdam
Ridiculous.
Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination, no matter if it’s ten minutes or ten years.
The sane Francis
Bullshit.
These anti-gay blood laws basically say gay=diseased. I’ve never had an STD. I get STD checks every 1-3 months. I’m not cheating on my wife like half of married men or having sex with hookers. Yet, I can’t give blood. I knew a woman who prostituted, stopped for a year, and she gave blood, yet I can’t, solely because I’m gay. Gay men who don’t have anal sex, or who wear condoms, and have a long-term partner, can’t give blood, and it’s only because they are gay.
Homophobia, pure and simple. In the truest sense of the word.
jamienoir
Or you could just do what I do and lie. Although when the question on the form is ‘have you had oral or anal sex with another man SINCE YOUR LAST DONATION?’ sometimes ticking the ‘no’ box isn’t a lie.
jamienoir
@The sane Francis:
The form does ask if you’ve ever hookered or banged a hooker (I may be paraphrasing here) so I’m guessing your friend fibbed.
jason
Ann Milton is a moron of the first order. Her new rule is basically saying that if you are a man who loves to have lots of unprotected anal sex with females, go right ahead and give blood. You may have stuck your unprotected dick up her ass yesterday but you are free to give blood today.
But woe betide if you are a man who does it to men. You’re “diseased”. You’re icky. You’re a danger to society. We have to allow a window of 10 years before you can give.
Shannon1981
This is just their way to get the gay rights activists off their backs. They’re still making impossible for actively gay men to donate. And they are also putting homosexuals into the category with IV drug users and prostitutes, which is so beyond insulting.
The sane Francis
Projection is sad.
joedee1969
Is our bear a birther?
http://americaspeaksink.com/2011/04/birther-movement-unveiled/comment-page-1/#comment-28810
Jeffree
@Joedee: He’s your bear, troll face. No one else cares about you flogging a blog.
Next time, try saying something about the topic. Be gone, buttercup !
GeriHew
Seriously, you’d have to be a complete ignoramus to assume that a man who hasn’t had sex with another man for the past 10 years is now “celibate”.
robert in NYC
I wonder if this report mentions straight males, single or married, who have multiple female sex partners and having unprotected sex and it doesn’t have to be anal sex? What about straight intravenous drug users, are they too mentioned? The article is vague and misleading.
KK
“Which means after the new rules take effect, the only gay men who will be able to legally donate blood will be … priests.”
By now we should know that priests have more sex than anyone. we should ban them
Enron
If you look at the thumb nail preview of the finger on the main page, it looks like a uncut el pene.
justnow
this is unfair but it CAN work
davidwr
This will increase the blood supply slightly so it will help everyone who needs blood in the UK, but it doesn’t help nearly as much as it could.
This will help bisexuals who are monogomous and whose partner happens to be female, but only after 10 years.
This will help gay men whose partners have died or who have broken up and who have chosen not to become sexually active again and who have been sexually inactive for a decade. This will be mostly senior citizens.
This will help male victims of homosexual rape – including those victimized as children or youth.
An intelligent policy would compare the current policy, the proposed policy, and a “don’t ban gay donors at all” policy to see which one leads to the best outcome for society. Unless the UK will never have a blood shortage again, any policy which reduces the amount of blood available is bad for society and will likely lead to death because of a preventable blood shortage.