FDA ends lifetime ban on gay men donating blood

[AM98GJ 3,086]

3 minutes ago, Didymus said:

HIV doesn't show up immediately on tests after infection. Even if three months after the date of possible infection you have a negative result, you should still get tested three months later, making a total period of six months in which the infection might appear on tests. Some bodies just take longer to create antibodies to the disease, which is what the tests have to pick up.

That's why this rule is there.

Thanks for explaining x 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

2 minutes ago, Didymus said:

HIV doesn't show up immediately on tests after infection. Even if three months after the date of possible infection you have a negative result, you should still get tested three months later, making a total period of six months in which the infection might appear on tests. Some bodies just take longer to create antibodies to the disease, which is what the tests have to pick up.

That's why this rule is there.

HIV can happen with any form of sexual intercourse. This line of thought is unwarranted and marginalizes gay men specifically.

[Stephen 30,433]

Just now, LebaneseDude said:

HIV can happen with any form of sexual intercourse. This line of thought is unwarranted and marginalizes gay men specifically.

exactly 

[Iwontell 7,312]

"there's a big catch: Men still cannot donate if they have had sex with other men in the previous 12 months."

Meaning, nothing changed and institutionalized bigotry is still a thing...happy 2k15!!!

[Didymus 34,380]

Just now, LebaneseDude said:

HIV can happen with any form of sexual intercourse. This line of thought is unwarranted and marginalizes gay men specifically.

Every sane person knows that the risk of sexually active gay men for getting HIV is insanely dramatic compared to heterosexuals getting it. To not let that play a factor would be absolutely moronic.

[Mobster 14,604]

How are they supposed to know when I had sex the last time?

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

10 minutes ago, Didymus said:

Every sane person knows that the risk of sexually active gay men for getting HIV is insanely dramatic compared to heterosexuals getting it. To not let that play a factor would be absolutely moronic.

So why is this a blanket ban?

What about gay men in committed relationships? Are you going to also ban straight men because they might cheat on their wives with HIV positive men?

What about gay men who have not had sex in a few weeks? The window period for 99% certainty is two weeks to a month. That's much more practical than a whole damn year.

Do you seriously block 99% of potential gay donors because 1% could potentially have AIDS after passing the window period? 

Not to mention that Prep/Truvada are already on the market and have proven to be effective methods of HIV prevention.

The worst thing is, while it's true that gay men have the most HIV infections, it's still a very small percentage in itself. Take 66% of HIV infections are from gay men. That means that gay men are twice as likely to have HIV than their straight counterparts. Twice as likely is still a small number.

So if straight people have aids 0.01% of the time (already an overestimate), then gay men have it 0.02% of the time.

HOLY **** BAN ALL GAY PEOPLE. 

I can't believe you're justifying this. 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Bah

[PartySick 172,486]

43 minutes ago, artRaver said:

Yeah, I agree. 

I brought up that point on a news article on Facebook and people got mad.

I mean if hetrosexual people can donate blood without waiting a certain amount of time why can't homosexuals. The disease ain't bulletproof for nobody, smh. 

Exactly this. The waiting time is stupid.  they should just have a requirement that you have to pass a blood test and be free of diseases and drugs.

This is literally civil union vs marriage all over again and it's not enough. It's not equal if it's sometimes.

[PartySick 172,486]

17 minutes ago, LebaneseDude said:

HIV can happen with any form of sexual intercourse. This line of thought is unwarranted and marginalizes gay men specifically.

It doesn't even have to be sexual intercourse tbh. You can get it from shared needles and (though rare) botched blood transfusions when their extensive testing doesn't cover it. The year long abstinence is just a pseudo progressive face.

[Didymus 34,380]

Just now, LebaneseDude said:

So why is this a blanket ban?

What about gay men in committed relationships? Are you going to also ban straight men because they might cheat on their wives with HIV positive men?

What about gay men who have not had sex in a few weeks? The window period for 99% certainty is two weeks to a month. That's much more practical than a whole damn year.

Do you seriously block 99% of potential gay donors because 1% could potentially have AIDS after passing the window period?

Not to mention that Prep/Truvada are already on the market and have proven to be effective methods of HIV prevention.

I can't believe you're justifying this. 

First off, window periods are affected by which method is used. You're talking about a method that is not used predominantly, so your post is misleading. Or better said: you're misleading yourself by not reading sources accurately/objectively.

And yes you do because you don't need them when there are safer alternatives. I don't see the big point, personally. Even if this ban is too dramatic, the numbers of HIV infections among gay men continue to be insanely worrying and I can perfectly understand that people don't feel comfortable with it. It's important to note that in these strategies, risk groups are treated as such, instead of just relying on whether or not someone says (or wrongly believes) he doesn't have HIV.

PrEP/Truvada have nothing to do with this

You can choose to overreact or you can understand the logic. I do the latter.

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

28 minutes ago, Didymus said:

First off, window periods are affected by which method is used. You're talking about a method that is not used predominantly, so your post is misleading. Or better said: you're misleading yourself by not reading sources accurately/objectively.

And yes you do because you don't need them when there are safer alternatives. I don't see the big point, personally. Even if this ban is too dramatic, the numbers of HIV infections among gay men continue to be insanely worrying and I can perfectly understand that people don't feel comfortable with it. It's important to note that in these strategies, risk groups are treated as such, instead of just relying on whether or not someone says (or wrongly believes) he doesn't have HIV.

PrEP/Truvada have nothing to do with this

You can choose to overreact or you can understand the logic. I do the latter.

No you're not using logic.

You're perpetuating the notion that you should marginalize an entire demographic because an insignificant portion of them may contract HIV. The percentage of new HIV cases may be highly skewed towards gay men (MSM specifically but it's irrelevant), but that does mean anything at all when it comes to studying risk factors.

There are 320 million people in the USA.

Let's use the popularly touted 2% are gay statistic. 

That means there are 6.4 million gay men in the USA.

Let's ignore the ones that have already been proven to be HIV positive. There were 25,000 new MSM HIV cases in 2015.

Let's also use the assumption that all MSM who contracted HIV got it from sex rather than other forms such as shared needles.

That means 0.003% of gay men will contract HIV in 2016 due to MSM.

So even operating under the INCREDIBLY false assumption that ALL of those men will contract HIV within the same window, that's already a significantly small number.

A more accurate representation would divide that number by 9 (9 potential "windows" starting from January 1st) using your 3 month rule (lol what is this 1990?).

Even then this hilariously assumes that all gay men could get tested once a month.

That makes it around 0.003% of gay men contracting HIV without anyone knowing.

Let's also use the FAR more accurate "window" being 25 days using modern testing equipment as opposed to three months. That ups the number of "windows" EXPONENTIALLY if you exclude that hilarious assumption I made just above.

That would make the number go as low to the point of statistical INSIGNIFICANCE.

With the spread of Truvada and Prep, expect the number of cases in 2016 to decrease significantly.

Consider all the other ****ing STDs and other crap that could potentially be acquired by all sexual orientations, the argument that HIV is more "RISKY" than others is highly overblown.

Good job drinking the Kool-Aid though. Keep spreading that logic.

---

Missed a point regarding the testing methodology. One could easily enforce a test requirement if one wants to donate blood. That's totally fair and is ALREADY implemented so the point remains irrelevant.

 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

16 minutes ago, PartySick said:

It doesn't even have to be sexual intercourse tbh. You can get it from shared needles and (though rare) botched blood transfusions when their extensive testing doesn't cover it. The year long abstinence is just a pseudo progressive face.

Right. I don't think people who use shared needles should donate blood at all, but that's not relevant to the topic.

[Didymus 34,380]

4 minutes ago, LebaneseDude said:

No you're not using logic.

You're perpetuating the notion that you should marginalize an entire demographic because an insignificant portion of them may contract HIV. The percentage of new HIV cases may be highly skewed towards gay men, but that does mean anything at all.

There are 320 million people in the USA.

Let's use the popularly touted 2% are gay statistic.

That means there are 6.4 million gay men in the USA.

Let's ignore the ones that have already been proven to be HIV positive. There were 25,000 new HIV cases in 2015.

That means 0.003% of gay men will contract HIV in 2016.

So even operating under the INCREDIBLY false assumption that ALL of those men will contract HIV within the same window, that's already a significantly small number.

A more accurate representation would divide that number by 9 (9 potential "windows" starting from January 1st) using your 3 month rule (lol what is this 1990?)

That makes it around 0.0003% of gay men contracting HIV without anyone knowing.

Let's also use the FAR more accurate "window" being 25 days using modern testing equipment as opposed to three months. That ups the number of "windows" EXPONENTIALLY.

That would make the number go as low to the point of statistical INSIGNIFICANCE.

With the spread of Truvada and Prep, expect the number of cases in 2016 to decrease significantly.

Consider all the other ****ing STDs and other crap that could potentially be acquired by all sexual orientations, the argument that HIV is more "RISKY" than others is highly overblown.

Good job drinking the Kool-Aid though. Keep spreading that logic.

I'm not perpetuating it. I'm simply stating that there is a logic and it should be given proper credit. Personally I think the lack of balance between gay and heterosexual people donating blood is because heterosexual people aren't treated strictly enough rather than gay people treated too strictly. Important difference.

I actually agree with the Red Cross stance on this issue which corresponds to yours, but I think it's just stupid to expect that the FDA will use the same logic. They work differently and I understand why. For me that's enough. Other people prefer to cry discrimination and homophobia, I just see a passing problem that will solve itself eventually.

There are some weak spots in your arguments though. The most troubling groups are most definitely black and latino homosexual men who are often ignorant about their own status, are not given proper treatment and do not have access to PrEP treatment. The idea that because PrEP is now available, the amount of infections will drop significantly, is a dangerous delusion.

And I disagree with your final passage as well. HIV is a lot more dangerous simply because the risk of transmission through blood transfusion is extremely high (90%) and the disease is of course uncurable.

So no, I do believe we can be satisfied with the FDA's decision. I think there are other areas in global society where a bias against homosexuals is a lot more urgent and worrying.

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

4 minutes ago, Didymus said:

I'm not perpetuating it. I'm simply stating that there is a logic and it should be given proper credit. Personally I think the lack of balance between gay and heterosexual people donating blood is because heterosexual people aren't treated strictly enough rather than gay people treated too strictly. Important difference.

I actually agree with the Red Cross stance on this issue which corresponds to yours, but I think it's just stupid to expect that the FDA will use the same logic. They work differently and I understand why. For me that's enough. Other people prefer to cry discrimination and homophobia, I just see a passing problem that will solve itself eventually.

There are some weak spots in your arguments though. The most troubling groups are most definitely black and latino homosexual men who are often ignorant about their own status, are not given proper treatment and do not have access to PrEP treatment. The idea that because PrEP is now available, the amount of infections will drop significantly, is a dangerous delusion.

And I disagree with your final passage as well. HIV is a lot more dangerous simply because the risk of transmission through blood transfusion is extremely high (90%) and the disease is of course uncurable.

So no, I do believe we can be satisfied with the FDA's decision. I think there are other areas in global society where a bias against homosexuals is a lot more urgent and worrying.

Well **** I never said this is the most important LGBT issue we face today.

The "weak" spot in my argument is very, very easily bypassed.

One can simply enforce a month ban using modern testing techniques. A month ban is still stupid but should honestly be applied for ALL people who want to donate.

Of course it's only gay men who must be marginalized.

It seems you are very laissez-faire regarding LGBT stances. That's fine, but that's not how progress works.

Battles are not mutually exclusive.