men who have had sex with men banned from donating to cbs, gay virgins and closet cases a-ok!

i took this from this website - its author was on a local news channel this morning.

Canadian Blood Services explicitly states: "all men who have had sex with another man, even once, since 1977 are indefinitely deferred [from donating blood]."  The organization's rationale for adopting this policy is allegedly based on information that suggests a higher risk of HIV/AIDS infection among men who have sex with men (MSM) compared to other groups. Blood Services' practice of rejecting MSM blood donors is being challenged for three reasons:    

* It is illegal under Section 5(a) of the Canadian Human Rights Act.    
* Assessing the overall proportion of HIV/AIDS infection among MSM is impossible, since the exact population of this group in Canada remains unknown.    
* Given that 54.3% of HIV positive tests in 2004 were attributed to causes other than MSM activity, all Canadian blood donors should be equally subject to rigorous testing and screening.

For more information, please read Hossein Kia's open letter to Canadian Blood Services CEO Dr. Graham Sher, which explains each of these points more specifically.  The news release also provides additional information.

my take?  test the blood for freakin aids!  thats how you tell if blood has aids.  hot and steamy unprotected gay sex since 1977 may be one of a few risk factors but asking people if theyve had gay sex as a means to counter this risk is pretty dang unscientific and unreliable.

petition found here

Comments

[sasha]

as i said elsewhere, blood donations are being tested for hiv, but because the tests are not 100% accurate, you still have a chance of being infected in a blood transfusion: about 1 in 2.5 million.

basically, i feel you are being lazy. not accepting blood from gay males has its advantages:

- lower risk of hiv infection, i.e. less people getting blood transfusions being infected with hiv.

it also has disadvantages

- it contributes to the marginalization of gay people in society
- it is offensive to many people

if you want to argue that these latter two are sufficient reason to infect one extra person with hiv every so often, then be my guest. but unless you make an argument of this sort, you haven't made a case in support of your petition.

[ainge]

but this just penalizes people for admitting theyre gay more than actually isolating the gay threat to blood.

that bit of the sentence was fun.

[Hossein]

As I've mentioned everywhere, any measure that would compromise the safety of the blood supply should be opposed. Given this, because the population of gay men is unknown in Canada, the proportion of this population carrying the HIV/AIDS infection is, at best, speculative.

Although we can assess the percentage of HIV positive tests attributed to gay sex, this analysis also doesn't really support the argument posited by CBS. 54.3% of HIV positive tests were not attributed to gay sex in 2004, implying that there are other risk groups. In light of this fact, If CBS fears for the safety of the blood supply, maybe it should heighten its screening procedures to account for HIV/AIDS risk among all populations.

[sasha]

"Given this, because the population of gay men is unknown in Canada, the proportion of this population carrying the HIV/AIDS infection is, at best, speculative."

The HIV incidence rate of homosexual males has in fact been computed in a number of studies. See for example here , here, and here. Relative to Canada specifically, there are some estimates of the prevalence here.

If you read these studies, you will see that there is plenty of statistical evidence that the MSM group throughout the world has a very high incidence rate relative to the population at large. The key word in the petition is "exactly"; these are merely statistical estimates, i.e. no one forced every Canadian to submit to an HIV test and a questionnaire, and then count how many tested positive out of those who said they had sex with other men. Its pretty silly to insist on knowing the number "exactly," as opposed to estimating it with statistics.

If CBS fears for the safety of the blood supply, maybe it should heighten its screening procedures to account for HIV/AIDS risk among all populations.

There are already are rather extensive screening procedures. And I don't think the numbers mean what you think they mean. Approximately 1.3% of Canadian men say they are gay, which is about %0.65 of the population. This %0.65 of the population accounts for %45.7 (=100%-54.3%) of the HIV positive tests in 2004. That is huge. It means they are quite likely the riskiest group, which is why they are being discriminated against here.

[ainge]

non-identifying gay men still have sex with men sometimes.

[sasha]

unfortunately, there are no easy ways to find out who they are, because they are "non-identifying." on the other hand, "identifying gay men" can be found by asking them if they are gay.

[sasha]

...or to put it another way. just because there are risks we can do nothing about doesnt mean we should avoid doing something about the risks that can be solved.

[Hossein]

Hm. I have some serious problems with the 1.3% statistic you brought to my attention. First, keep in mind that that is an approximation of those who self-identify as EXCLUSIVELY homosexual (emphasis on "approximation" and "self-identify"). I'm very happily and openly gay, but even I wouldn't label myself as EXCLUSIVELY homosexual, because I don't believe sexuality and gender identity is that rigid (there are many other gay men who would agree with me).

A lot of social scientists now agree that as many as one in four men has had a homosexual experience at one point in their life (Baron et al, 2006).

Either way, does the act of men having sex with men necessarily imply HIV/AIDS risk, or is this more a question of unsafe sexual practices (ie. not using a condom)? Would I have a problem if the policy was targeted instead at those who engaged in unsafe sexual behaviours? Probably not.

[sasha]

"Hm. I have some serious problems with the 1.3% statistic you brought to my attention. First, keep in mind that that is an approximation of those who self-identify as EXCLUSIVELY homosexual"

All right. Consider, for example, a study in Britain that asked specifically about having ever had a same sex experience, reported here.The result is 8.4% of men, roughly 4.2% of the population.

Whatever estimate you use: 1-2%, 4%, or even 25%, you still have the same conclusion relative to the ~45% of new HIV positive tests: the MSM group is much more high risk than the general population. This is confirmed by all of those studies that I linked to in my previous comment who measure the MSM HIV incidence rate by random sampling (without counting percentages of the population). All of them point to incidence rates far above those of the general population.

Would I have a problem if the policy was targeted instead at those who engaged in unsafe sexual behaviours? Probably not.

The policy is already extremely well targeted. The red cross, for example, rules out a lot of groups thought to be high risk besides MSM, for example those "born in, or lived in, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea,Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria, since 1977" and "had sex with anyone who, since 1977, was born in or lived in any of these countries." CBS does not explicitly say on its webpage what the eligibility criteria are, but it asks pretty much the same questions on its questionnaire.

A policy thats targeted even more will be less reliable. People may not remember the details of all their sexual experiences and answer incorrectly. Even if they do remember, they may not answer honestly about condom use. The burden here is on you: if you want a different policy to be used, then you have to bring evidence that people from the MSM group who give acceptable answers to a series of questions have an incidence rate no higher than the general population. For the reasons I listed above, its unclear whether this is indeedthe case. Given that no such evidence exists, I don't see how we can second guess the blood banks for adopting an ultra-safe policy.

[Hossein]

This is becoming a really long discussion thread, so I will actually make this my last post, but invite you to e-mail me if you'd like to continue talking about this. I'm more than open to it and I don't mind hearing criticism.

Well, ok. Let's suppose that you have shown considerable evidence that the MSM group is at high risk for HIV/AIDS (which I would still disagree with). Considering that Aboriginals make up about 2% of Canada's overall population and comprise 14% of HIV positive tests, would you then say that we have to deny Aboriginals the right to give blood? Of course not... because (and I would agree), this would be discriminatory. But of course, it's fine to reject gay people. It's been done a lot in history and it's something, well, "normal."

You also bring forth the concern about people answering the questionnaire dishonestly if it were targetted towards sexual behaviours. Hmm. And you really think everyone responds honestly to the question of whether they are a man who's had sex with another man since 1977? I'm a little confused about this. Or maybe I'm not reading you correctly. I think the possibility of lying or inaccurately responding (intentionally or unintentionally) to questionnaire items exists in any case.

[sasha]

I'd prefer to answer here, rather than email.

- Yes, if the statistics about aboriginals in canada you cited are correct, I'd support denying them the "right" to give blood. If there is any reason at all which justifies discrimination, giving people hiv is it. And I'm pretty certain that Canada already denies the "right" to give blood to anyone who has lived in Africa, which is quite discriminatory already (see their questionnaire - by contrast, as far as the red cross goes, "Africa" is replaced by a list 5-10 African countries).

Discrimination is not a magic wand you can wave at an argument to make it go away. If you really want to go down this line, you need to make an argument that nondiscrimination against gay people is worth giving someone hiv every so often. Good luck.

- As for honesty, yes, the possibility of incorrect responses always exists, but is greater for some questions than others. People typically have many sexual experiences in their lifetime. I can't recall the details of each. On the other hand, having had sex with a guy is not something thats likely to slip your mind.

[ainge]

sasha, stop being lazy.