Originally Posted By KISHMAY_PINAS

And there's times mollie's on his Menzies for 3 weeks outta the month. Watch yo'self!

Originally Posted By MATRICKS

Can I keep not giving blood when the ban is over?

Originally Posted By MELODRASTIK

Or you give blood or it's your liver. CHOOSE!

Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD

I might actually agree with this, but only if it wasn't just a "ZOMG LOOK INJUSTICE IN THE WORLD!" knee-jerk freak-out that the whole campaign is hinging on.

Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD

What they should do is maybe change the wording of the questionaire to not outright ask "are you gay", but "have you had anal sex within the past year", because THAT'S the reason they don't want gay men giving blood; not that they're gay, but that anal sex between two men is THE #1 cause of AIDS/HIV spreading in North America, followed by Heterosexual sex, and injecting drugs comes in at 3rd place.

I would absolutely support a change in the wording, from 'men who have sex with other men' to 'persons who have participated in any form of anal sex within the past year', but to just overlook that one important FACT about the #1 method of infection/transmission of an EXTREMELY deadly, currently-incurable disease that can take up to 3/4 of a year to show up on blood tests, that's just irresponsible and stupid.

Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD
The whole thing has absolutely NOTHING to do with them being gay

Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD
and entirely to do with the fact that one of the most common/widespread forms of sex that's had between two gay men is anal.

Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD
They do have a risk, but it's really fairly specifically anal penetration from a man that does it.

Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD
I dunno what the screening-forms are like for blood donation, but I'm pretty certain that they include things like 'have you gotten a piercing or tattoo recently' or 'do you engage in any high-risk sexual activities'..

Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD
But statistically, men having sex with other men is the current #1 cause of AIDS/HIV transmission, and for heterosexual women the risk of getting it comes from sex with 'high risk' partners - men who are bi and have sex with other men, or men who inject drugs.

Originally Posted By DENSETSU13

This isn't just a "knee-jerk freak-out". It's more about getting rid of an antiquated policy that currently hurts more than it helps.

The problem with your reasoning here is that it's not about whether you have anal sex with someone (because otherwise straight people wouldn't be allowed to give blood either...) but rather if you have UNPROTECTED SEX with other people.

...

Again sex without protection (a condom) is what propagates the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, not specifically homotastic ass-fucking.

...

There are indeed questions that target the things you brought up, but for straight people there's a limit to how long ago they had unprotected sex that bars them from donating blood. That limit isn't as ridiculous as 1977.

...

Do you honestly think heterosexual women can ONLY get HIV from sleeping with a man that has had sex with another man or intravenous drug users? How do you explain a lesbian getting HIV when they have never slept with a man or someone who has never had sexual contact with an IDU?

Your stats aren't looking at the whole picture. Still, to this day, the largest group of HIV carriers globally are young adult women. In North America specifically, the biggest group that carries HIV are indeed men who have sex with other men, but even that is a small percentage of the entire population of men who have sex with men.

The reason why this policy is considered so discriminatory is because it targets gay men regardless of whether their sexual practices are better or worse than their straight counterparts. It is considered outdated because technology is loads more advanced than when HIV first came around and they did not know how to screen blood, testing procedures were not that reliable and it was more expensive. These days cost is not an issue, ALL donated blood is tested rigorously and the tests are 99% accurate.

Originally Posted By MOLOCH

Bwahahaha!
Are you antagonizing me?

Originally Posted By DENSETSU13

Thank you Mélo and everyone else for you support!

Originally Posted By KISHMAY_PINAS

Just takin the piss Mollie cuz I knows you can handle it! S'all love bruddah

Originally Posted By BETTY_HAZE

even if the stats are showing that aids are more frequent in the homos population...

i don't understand.. i would have think they check and test blood before they proceed to a transfusion in every cases where ever the blood's from? non?!

Originally Posted By DAWKER30

En plus de ca, un gars qui baise avec un autre gars gay ou non, va se faire dire dsl mon ti-pit mais tu es sur notre black list maintenant!

Au fait kkun ou kkune pourrais me dire a quoi servent leurs putain de system qui vérifie chaque don de sang offer???? À quoi serve alors nos précieux et précieuse machine qui détecte toute sorte de bébitte encore plus destroy que le sida...

Anyway, hétéro, bi, gay, trans... avec une corne de licorne sul front pis des oreilles de dumbo...c'est tout pareil: LE SANG SE VÉRIFIE! SI UNE BATCH EST CONTIMINÉ, ONT DÉTRUIT CTE BATCH LA.......

Originally Posted By DRNYARLATHOTEP

C'est sur que si écris à tes politiciens de cette façon, la seule réponse que tu vas avoir est "on va vérifier ça"... Bordel, te déchiffrer m'a prit une heure.

Originally Posted By DAWKER30

tk jme comprend!