I sure am glad they’re banning gays from donating blood because of that huge risk of transmitting all the HIV we’re carrying, unlike organ transplants, where the risk is totally negligible. Oh, wait. You’re telling me a patient contracted HIV from a live kidney transplant? And it’s “the nation’s first documented case of HIV transmission via a transplant from a living donor since a sensitive test for the virus was approved and implemented for donor screening in 1985”? Better cut the gays off from donating their insides, too.
Eric
Why is it assumed that the kidney came from a gay man? Or even inferred in the story? If all the facts are not in a story like this, then it should be reported with more care.
Jamie
More importantly, have you contacted Michael Weinstein from the Aids Healthcare Foundation to get his predictable response that all kidney transplants should immediately cease? I mean, if a single case of HIV transmission on the porn set means that all porn must stop… doesn’t it follow?
Oprah
This tells me HIV is spreading at unbelievable rate underground. It is alarming how humanbeings are complacent. Did they forget the 80s wipe out of the gay community? Africas wipe out in 90s? Asia and East Europe wipe out of 2000s? Seriously?
chpinnlr
@Eric: Unfortunatly the kidney did come from a gay man. He apparently had unprotected sex after he was tested for comunicable diseases but before the transplant, a 9 week window. Here is a link to anther article that has a bit more information http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-health/20110317/US.MED.AIDS.Kidney.Transplant/
chpinnlr
Sorry it was an 11 week window.
alan brickman
All gays should donate blood tomorrow and just not tell anyone they’re gay….
alan brickman
All gays should donate blood tomorrow and just not tell anyone they’re gay….it would be activitism to do that..
Hyhybt
Thank you, Queerty, for illustrating this with a diagram, not a photo of a real human kidney.
David
@chpinnlr:
OK. That guy is a scumbag. Why would he have unprotected sex before donating an organ?
Hyhybt
@David: The usual combination of horny and stupid would be a safe bet…
justiceontherocks
@Hyhybt: Alcohol probably helped, too.
David
@Hyhybt:
Yeah, but he’s just given a death sentence to the recipient of the kidney. Transplant recipients have to take immune system suppressors. Therefore, I imagine, there’s little chance of surviving the transplant, HIV, anti-viral meds, etc.
The man had a responsibility to not just himself but to another person.
Hyhybt
@David: I know…. but the answer to “why” is still the usual one. It’s only the consequences that are different.
Mike in Asheville
SORRY, BUT THE ORIGINAL STORY, QUEERTY AND POSTERS HAVE MISSED THE MOST SIGNIFICANT POINT:
This is the first case of HIV transmission through organ transplant since 1985 — in the last 25 years there have been approximately 500,000 organ transplants in the US. Additionally, there have been over 200,000 bone marrow transplants and 25,000 eye transplants.
Sad that this one patient was the one, but medical/health standards have been remarkably successful: 1 in 775,000.
Indeed amend procedures to testing again closer to the operation and even rapid testing at the hospital just prior to the operation. But the CDC, NIH and the transplant agencies have done an amazing job in this area. Also, God bless all those who have donated organs for the benefit of those in need.
rrr
@Mike in Asheville: According to the article chpinnlr linked above that’s not true, there has been at least one other confirmed transmission in the United States in recent years (“in Illinois in 2007, when organs from a 38-year-old gay man went to four recipients”) and an alleged transmission that is the subject of a lawsuit is also mentioned (“An Orlando, Fla., woman last year filed a lawsuit saying she was infected with HIV through a 2007 kidney transplant from a live donor in Florida. However, CDC officials said they have not been asked to investigate and could not confirm the report.”).
John
Transplant patient got AIDS from new kidney
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-health/20110317/US.MED.AIDS.Kidney.Transplant/
“…It turns out the donor had unprotected gay sex in the 11 weeks between the time he tested negative and the time the surgery took place in 2009…”
Aside from the predictable risk to a recipient’s health, this stunning incident – along with the recent increase in HIV infection rates amongst young gay men in the West – is yet another reason why it’s imprudent to risk kicking the pins out from under already tenuous LGBT rights advances just for the sake of what little blood could be collected from roughly 2% – 10% of the general population in the name of a misguided tangent to our overall quest for equality.
We do not have the ‘right’ to insist that our blood be introduced into someone else’ body any more than we have the ‘right’ to insist upon an intimate introduction of our semen. Bodily fluids are bodily fluids.
IMO flogging blood donations as a gay rights issue is a GRAVE mistake (pun intended) which plays into the hands of our enemies by effectively confirming the existence of “the radical gay agenda.”
Let’s stick with the pursuit of those rights which are INDEED our due: hate crime prevention legislation, legal & social parity, and equal marriage–the rights which CAN’T adversely affect the well-being and goodwill of our str8 allies, and thus, our prospects for a better future.
B
No. 3 · Oprah wrote, “This tells me HIV is spreading at unbelievable rate underground.”
What it actually tells you is that, if you try over 500,000 times (see another person’s comment above about the number of organ transplants that have been done), then don’t be all that surprised if you see a one in a million event taking place.
Let’s ask the real question: would you take a on in a million chance of an HIV infection when the alternative is a 100% chance of dying in a few months?
You might also want to compare the chances of becoming HIV+ from an organ transplant to the chances of dying because the operation was not successful (not surviving the surgery or the transplant being rejected).