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As many of you who are UK resisdents are probably aware, the National Blood Service in the UK, a fine organization which does in many respects a wonderful job, has one major stain on its record: it does not allow gay and bisexual men to donate if they have ever had sex. Whether oral or anal, whether it was yesterday or a decade ago, if you are a man and you've had sex with another man you can never give blood again.
This ridiculous and discriminatory policy is plainly visible in their blood donation test, specifically this question. They weasel out of this policy being discrimination by claiming it is "behaviour based" (hence the question about sex acts rather than strictly sexuality). But it doesn't bear any scrutiny: why should the gender of the person you have sex with affect the dangerousness of that act? Their explanation of their policies does nothing to explain.
So now you have the capability to sign an electronic petition asking the Prime Minister to overturn the ban. The petition is hosted by Number 10 itself, so you can be sure they're really listening.
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Comments
Trixie
Do other countries follow the same guidelines.
Hugh Anchor
HA.
Ade B
My main issue with this is the permanent ban.
It is still true to say that men who have sex with men are in a far higher risk group then men who don't. Should we have a right to give blood? it's a difficult debate.
The main problem is that hte blood service has a shortage of blood, so shouldnt be turning away people who are safe to give blood. they should have far better models of risk and should be willing to regularly review their policies based on science (they don't do this often enough.)
The anti body test is over 95% accurate after 5 months. Now after a year the risk of HIV+ blood not being detected should be at about the same level as HIV not being detected in a man who doesnt sleep with men (with no delay after sexual activity).
A posisble (although not ideal) compromise would be a 1 year ban.
The current system is totally indefensible.
Ade B
(THT support the policy, you might want to ask them why)
Robert
At one stage I had four reasons not to donate...
Laurie
Max Hammond
Note that there's no causality here - just a correlation between a question they can ask and something they want to avoid.