AIBU to think this is homophobic?

[MotherPanda]

Was just looking at the guidelines for giving blood and it reads that you must not give blood if you have had sex with:

A man (if you?re a male). Men who have had anal or oral sex with another man (with or without a condom) are deferred from blood donation for 12 months.

Can someone explain to me why this is different from heterosexual anal sex or any sexuality oral sex?

I don't see why the risk is greater.

See post above. They have looked at doing that and have concluded that it would put patients at risk.

Is the thing about having had a blood transfusion in the 1980s related to vCJD? I know I can't give blood for that reason but I can't remember why.

Here's some info on HIV testing.

www.avert.org/hivtesting.htm

The test in pregnancy would only be pointless if you had very recently caught HIV.

so.. is 12 months a fair time, is that how long it takes for infection to show up?

yes, it's homophobic. It should be that anyone who's had a new partner within 12 months should be excluded. I find it pretty ridiculous that you could go out and have a new partner every weekend if you're straight and still give blood, but have to abstain for a year if you're a gay man.

Thanks FrillyMilly - great link -

in the vast majority of cases, the standard test that will be offered at an HIV testing centre will be an HIV antibody test. The HIV antibody test looks for antibodies to the virus in a person's blood. For most people these antibodies take 6 weeks to 3 months to develop. In very rare cases, it can take up to 6 months. It is extremely rare for a person to take any longer then 6 months to develop detectable antibodies.

So 7 months would be a fairer time?

i thought once you'd had a transfusion, you couldn't give blood again at all.

They're not that desperate for blood. If they were they'd relax their criteria. For example I'm often rejected for having borderline low iron levels. There is nothing wrong with my blood, all useable. I might potentially suffer a little more from giving it but no big deal. i've been told a number of times if they were short of blood they'd relax this policy, but they can afford to be fussy.

maybe if more people from the non-exclueded groups donated then we wouldn't need to take more risks by using blood that has been gained from the higher risk groups.

FWIW I kind of agree with your point. I think screening should be more based on individual peoples practices. A friday night on here shows that its not just the gay community that participate in a bit of bumsex but for now there is a responsiblity to the people who are receiving the blood that we try to ensure that it is as safe as possible.

It isn't though. Risk data is objective, not subjective. Individual behaviours will not always conform with the group norm but as a group men who have gay sex are at more risk than people who have heterosexual sex. The only way to make it entirely 'fair' to everyone wanting to donate would be to have individual screening and risk assessment, which has been considered but rejected on grounds of patient safety, which is and should always be top priority.

FrillyMillys link also says that there is a HIV PCR test that can give accurate results within 3 weeks of infection...

Very good point muddypuddles

Apparantly it can take upto 6 months for the infection to show up.

But bear in mind until less than a month ago they could not donate at all. I would assume a review will take place after a certain amount of time based on the new donations received and the amount of donations that are unusable due to HIV.

It's not homophobic. It's about protecting the recipient of the transfusion. You have to take a broad-based assessment of the risk (much as insurance companies do when raising premiums for younger drivers). You can't evaluate every single case because of the cost.

Look at the figures KaddKakka gave earlier:

"According to the Terrence Higgins Trust 73% of HIV infections in 2010 were diagnosed in gay men and 21% in people recently migrated from Africa."

Gay men make up something like 5-10% of the population but they have 73% of new HIV infections. That's a very big difference in risk.

I am surprised that we don't need more blood as much as i thought we did - they probably would lower the guidelines if the banks were short.

Oh well, its just wrong. employing men only is cheaper, don't have to pay them maternity leave (although i realist that it's changing now) - doesn't mean that sex discrimination is allowed because its cost saving...

No, it's not homophobic!

Blood giving rules are about safety, to both parties.

I cannot give blood atm because:
a) I have been to South America too recently
b) I am anaemic
c) I am too small

The first two protect the recipient and the third protects me. Annoying but necessary rules.

If homosexuals were not allowed to RECEIVE blood then THAT would be homophobic!

I always used to donate, then a few years ago I was told I couldn't donate anymore because I'd had a blood transfusion in 1992 (DS1) and I might have mad cow disease! Now I know I'm a mad cow, but that is so ridiculous. They happily took the blood before then (and after the transfusion)

openerofjars No-one who has ever had a blood donation can give blood because of a risk of a blood-borne disease that we don't yet know about. Seems unlikely but the risk of mixing something that can only be transmitted by blood is high, and the proportion of the population who have recieved blood in the past is (thankfully) fairly low.

For the "men having sex with men" rule, they looked at the statistics and changing from "ever" to "in the last 12 months" had a negligable impact in the number of HIV+ donations. But removing the restriction entirely had a bigger increase because it takes time to discover someone has a disease.

It isn't wrong. A risk balance must be achieved so that the benefit of donating blood outweighs the risk that it is contaminated. Ideally, all blood donors would be virgins with perfect medical histories who did not smoke, travel abroad, take any sort of medication or drink alcohol and who ate a carefully balanced organic diet. It just isn't possible to meet that standard so the risks of lowering it to the current level have been judged by scientific evaluation to be outweighed by the benefit of having blood available for transfusions. Homophobia, racism, sexism, whatever, simply does not come into it.

I would rather they made sure all blood was safe. To much risk with the "it's probably safe" view

The rules are just too broad, imo.

I, as a straight female, could go out and have unprotected sex with as many people as I wanted and then go and give blood. An odd weekend, I grant you

my hypothetical neighbour who has been in a same sex relationship with his partner for 20 years can never give blood.

Too broad.

Again it's a cost/benefit situation. In the link I posted at the beginning it does say that they could be more individualistic in their questions on sexual lifestyle BUT analysis shows that they would lose existing donors who felt uncomfortable answering intimate detailed questions. So they would lose more donors than they would gain, meaning that the cost falls again with the patient's safety - which is priority #1.

Sorry, I've got to go out now so will check back on this later.

Thanks for your thoughts. I feel as if I'm BU on one count.. but NBU on the other.

tunnelmaniac new reserch has shown that vCJD can be has a very long incubation period and iirc can only be tested for at a postmortem exam. this is why anyone who has recieved a blood transfusion since 1980 may now not donate, so as to minimise the risk of passing it on. even if you show no signs of being infected

Good point, AKMD.

YABU