Blood Transfusions

damien

College Group Protests Gay Blood Ban

Cork, November 15th. College students will this week begin staging a three
day peaceful protest when the Blood Transfusion Service comes to UCC for
their blood drive. Every year when the BTS visits UCC, there is a protest
to highlight the fact that gay men are banned from giving blood under a
draconian measure first put in place 20 years ago.

This blood ban stems from an emergency policy at the height of the AIDS
panic around 1985 when the FDA in America imposed a blanket ban on gay men
giving blood. At the time, procedures for screening HIV looked for
antibodies for the virus, which could take weeks or months to develop.
Policymakers had worried that during this window HIV tainted blood could go
through the screening process undetected. Today, there are superior testing
procedures so that the window from infection to detection has been cut to 5
days.

Speaking at the start of this protest UCC LGB Society Auditor Mike Waldron
commented. " While modern testing procedures have increased in
sophistication and thoroughness, the gay blood ban is still in effect. In
light of this we feel that the ban is nothing but discrimination,
arrogantly veiled as protecting the public. As a result of this we are
sending written complaints to the IBTS, the Minister of Health and the
Equality Authority"

"The issue we have is that the gay ban is based on a persons status and not
the acts that may have exposed them to the risk. While risky acts performed
by heterosexuals will incur a temporary ban, a gay man will be banned
indefinitely for the same acts. Double standards are at play and the
reasons the IBTS gives for this are not in touch with modern day studies."
said Waldron

Highlighting the stark contrast between the rights of a gay couple and
straight couple, Campaigns Officer Sonya Donnelly stated: "Monogamous gay
couples in long-term stable relationships, who are tested regularly and
have a history of safe sex are barred from donating blood forever. Under
the same policy a single heterosexual female who can have many partners and
who doesn't practice safe sex will not receive the same lifetime ban. We
are asking the IBTS to re-examine their policy and allow healthy and safe
people to donate. "

In America in 2002 an FDA vote to overturn the lifetime ban on gay men lost
out by one vote: 7-6. The main opposition coming from the American Red
Cross who some groups such as the Liberty Foundation claim were doing it
for financial and PR reasons. At a meeting of the FDA Blood Products
Advisory Committee in September 2000 the American Association of Blood
Banks (AABB) and America's Blood Centers (ABC) who together collect more
than half the blood in America, asked for the lifetime ban to be lifted.

Auditor Waldon added "Whenever this is brought up on the agenda the IBTS
fob it off by pointing to World Health Organisations Reports or talk about
most developed countries keeping the ban, but the fact is that the IBTS
need to start moving with the times and accept that there is no need to ban
gay men for life to maintain the same quality of blood. Other developed
countries are changing their attitudes and so should Ireland. "

Speaking about interacting with the IBTS, Campaigns Officer Donnelly stated
"We think with the new additions to the board of the IBTS a roundtable
discussion between them and all the gay welfare groups would be a
progressive step for all. Gay blood is safe blood and gay people are
healthy people, this must be recognized."

Amnesiac_ie

Met the guys on campus today. The protest went really well; they have received significant media coverage already and it's fantastic that the soc are also drawing attention to the fact that there is a sever shortage of blood in our blood banks and they are pleading with everybody "eligible" to donate!

damien

2 radio stations and 4 newspapers in one day is some bloody feat ! Well done. Hope they take this nationwide and all the other college socs join in.

Amnesiac_ie

The Blood Ban campaign is a USI LGBT campaign that the UCC soc are feeding into. There are high profile campaigns in many other USI affiliated colleges; I think DIT's was very controversial last year!?!?

wiw4

well i have to agree with the blood board there, maybe gay women should be allowed donate blood, but not the men, they are the ones who could be passing around infected blood products.

ixoy

wiw4 wrote:

well i have to agree with the blood board there, maybe gay women should be allowed donate blood, but not the men, they are the ones who could be passing around infected blood products.

But the argument is that anyone could be infected but that the blood screening tests will pick it up for both homo- and hetrosexual people so there's no reason to ban homosexual people from donating once it's screened properly.

wiw4

ah i see, well then i have no problem with it, where do i join the protest?

Stark

ixoy wrote:

But the argument is that anyone could be infected but that the blood screening tests will pick it up for both homo- and hetrosexual people so there's no reason to ban homosexual people from donating once it's screened properly.

And there's the second argument that all gay men are put in the same boat, whereas this isn't done for heterosexuals. A gay man an engage in oral sex using condom (giving or receiving) with another man once in his life and he'll be banned from giving blood for life. A heterosexual woman can work as a prostitute letting HIV positive men bareback her 24/7 and have an intravenous drug habit on the side, and she'll only be banned for 12 months.

Amnesiac_ie

wiw4 wrote:

well i have to agree with the blood board there, maybe gay women should be allowed donate blood, but not the men, they are the ones who could be passing around infected blood products.

That post betrays a shocking level of ignorance.
For your own sake, you really should spend a little time educating and infroming yourself *stops before he swears*

ixoy

Amnesiac_ie wrote:

That post betrays a shocking level of ignorance.
For your own sake, you really should spend a little time educating and infroming yourself *stops before he swears*

Yeah but let's be fair to him, he retracted it right afterwards. It could also be a thought that's echoing in other people's minds and threads such as this, and protests, might help educate them.

damien

Amnesiac_ie wrote:

The Blood Ban campaign is a USI LGBT campaign that the UCC soc are feeding into.

First I heard of that. I didn't know the USI were involved in organising the UCC protest at all. I was of the opinion it was down to the very very hard work of a small few and the voluntary work of a few others.

uberwolf

Certainly at one point gay men as a group were a higher risk group (I presume this is accepted?). Have there been studies more recently which prove otherwise or is it simply a question of it being non PC in todays environment?

In terms of it being a PR thing, like politicians I guess the BTSB not alone have to be safe, but seen to be safe, so that perceptions of risk in society are as important as actual risk in determining what to exclude/include.

I too am banned from donating blood due to living in Britain for too long in the eighties. Is that xenophobic? or merely a consequence of a higher (however slight) risk associated with my lifestyle?

damien

uberwolf wrote:

Certainly at one point gay men as a group were a higher risk group (I presume this is accepted?). Have there been studies more recently which prove otherwise or is it simply a question of it being non PC in todays environment?

Gay men to this day are a higher risk group than heterosexuals. This is accepted. But saying that, heterosexual males may be a higher risk group than heterosexual females but they are treated equally and judged by their behaviour.

I too am banned from donating blood due to living in Britain for too long in the eighties. Is that xenophobic? or merely a consequence of a higher (however slight) risk associated with my lifestyle?

That's a ban due to being in an area which has a high concentration of vCJD which still is being researched and it's means of contamination is still not accurately known, just like HIV back in 1985. I'm sure as better methods of detection of vCJD come into play they may start lifting this ban.

If for example you were banned for 5 years for living in the UK but a gay man was banned for life it would be the equivalent (in my opinion) to what is happening with the gay blood ban.

Amnesiac_ie

The campaign was hurt last year when some USI affiliates tried and succeeded in getting the IBTs banned from campus. It was discussed at Standing Conference last year and hopefully this year all participating socs will encourage as many people as possible to donate blood and raise awareness rather than actions which could see the numbers of donors falling.

Scarinae

A thread about the Blood Transfusion Board was up on the Dublin City board, and somebody commented on how you may never give blood if "You are a male who has ever had anal or oral sex with another male, even if a condom or other form of protection was used"
Their point was that many women have unprotected oral and anal sex, and that this rule discriminates against homosexuals. I'm interested to hear people's opinions on this. Do you think this rule is too strict? If you fit into that category, do you feel you are being discriminated against because of your orientation?

Cy

Hi Fishie,
From what I remember of my history this rule was brought in when AIDS first hit Europe in the 80's. It was supposed to be meant as a stopgap measure until it was fully discovered what AIDS was.
But yeah, I agree with whoever made the point about it being discriminatory. Cause the way things are at the moment it's a lot easier for a prostitute to give blood than a gay guy. (not that I want to sound discriminatory against prostitutes or anything...)
I heard that a motion was raised at the last Transfusion Service board meeting to change this but it was rejected on the grounds that "most other countries still have this rule in place"
Don't you just love Ireland's pioneering spirit and willingness to take risks?
</rant>

Stark

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=201386

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=107380

damien

Cy wrote:

I heard that a motion was raised at the last Transfusion Service board meeting to change this but it was rejected on the grounds that "most other countries still have this rule in place"
</rant>

Can you elaborate any more on this ? I'd be very very interested in that.

Hey mods. Can you merge with the other thread ?

Cy

Auditor Waldon added "Whenever this is brought up on the agenda the IBTS
fob it off by pointing to World Health Organisations Reports or talk about
most developed countries keeping the ban, but the fact is that the IBTS
need to start moving with the times and accept that there is no need to ban
gay men for life to maintain the same quality of blood. Other developed
countries are changing their attitudes and so should Ireland. "
-taken from http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=201386

Why would Ireland "talk about most developed countries keeping the ban"?
Are we just too afraid to be the first to do something?

Boston

Thats hardle a response to his question.

Cy

What would you consider a response to his question?
damien.m asked me to elaborate and i did based on what i had read in the other forum and heard from the UCC protest a few months back

damien

I was involved in the UCC blood ban. I was the one that did the research on it.

Can you point to a link or a source for where you talked about the last Irish Blood Transfusion Service meeting and them rejecting it ? If you can verify this then I can send in an FOI request to get the minutes of it.

If you are using my research which I posted here or on the USI website or on the UCC LGBT web forum, then I referenced the American FDA meeting where they wanted to remove the ban but due to just pure politics the American Red Cross vetoed it.

rsynnott

The problems with protesting against the Blood ban are:
1) They're not going to change this, unless there is an acute shortage
2) Any protest could potentially drive people who are eligible to give blood away, or not to give blood "in support" of the protest. This would be a Bad Thing.
Rob

Boston

rsynnott wrote:

The problems with protesting against the Blood ban are:
1) They're not going to change this, unless there is an acute shortage

That would be the worst possible time to change it, and I doubt blood stocks would ever reach such a critical level anyway.

2) Any protest could potentially drive people who are eligible to give blood away, or not to give blood "in support" of the protest. This would be a Bad Thing.

If people choose not to give blood to a homophobic organization, well thats their choice. However, reality would suggest that blood donations actually increase in light of protests against these policies, not decrease. Probably because people arn't really that stupid.

damien

rsynnott wrote:

The problems with protesting against the Blood ban are:
1) They're not going to change this, unless there is an acute shortage

There is always a shortage. They've been saying they're running on empty the past few years. I don't think they'll allow gay men to donate blood due to a shortage, that would be a pr disaster. They've been the ones that for years have been promoting the fallacy that gay men's blood is risky to those receiving donated blood.

If they hadn't killed so many people in the past two decades by infecting them with HIV and Hepatitis C, I think the IBTS would be a lot more partial to listening to people about lifting their unfair ban. Right now they're in ultra-conservative / hatches battened down mode. Any policy which might make it look like they're upping the risk to people who get transfusions is not going to be welcomed.

However what they need to understand is that they cannot let their irrational fears get in the way of equal rights. They can still be inclusive and still keep patients safe. I think a proper dialogue with them over this would make them understand this, the problem is are they open enough to enter into the dialogue ? If they're not they'll need to be lobbied so that they are.

2) Any protest could potentially drive people who are eligible to give blood away, or not to give blood "in support" of the protest. This would be a Bad Thing.

The UCC protest increased the numbers for the IBTS by encouraging those who could donate to go. I think this can be built on again this year. There have been some negative campaigns that prevented the IBTS from collecting blood on some college campuses and I think that is damaging to everyone involved. Blood is an essential component of the health service. It needs to be donated and more needs to be donated.

WhiteWashMan

while i give blood regularly, i cant help but be amused at the most ironical thing i have seen in ages.

students campaigning against bans on giving blood.
most promiscuous bunch of people in the land!

rsynnott

WhiteWashMan wrote:

while i give blood regularly, i cant help but be amused at the most ironical thing i have seen in ages.

students campaigning against bans on giving blood.
most promiscuous bunch of people in the land!

Yes, exactly, and of course, the people with the greatest risk of being a HIV carrier are gay men! Except they're not. The highest risk group is in fact heterosexual females aged 18-25. Who can give blood quite happily.

I'm opposed to campaigning against this ban, because of its unchangability and the fact that at the moment it does no-one any particular damage, but it is unquestionably a very, very silly ban.

Rob (who is barred from giving blood anyway 'cause he lived in the UK for 6 months and is therefore obviously a vCJD carrier).

MicraBoy

Anyone what the story is with regards to gay men (or should I say men who have had sex with men) donating their organs? Is there a ban on this too?

damien

No, the Organ Donor people accept men who have sex with men as organ donors. They are confident that their tests and fair screening can detect anything that could harm the patient.

MicraBoy

Thanks Damien, I was about to take the scissors to my multi-donor card. :eek:

Boston

rsynnott wrote:

I'm opposed to campaigning against this ban, because of its unchangability and the fact that at the moment it does no-one any particular damage, but it is unquestionably a very, very silly ban.

Have to say I agree with Rob on this. It's about time we stoped campaigning against the ban on same sex marriage, this country is run by catholics and puritants, who will never except same sex couples, thats unchangable. Who exactly is being damaged by the refusal to let gay people marry? No one is.

Bull**** arguments rob, that have been used on every campaign like this from the legalisation of homosexuality to the availability of contraception. The world I full of people who believe just because things are the way they are now, that they will always be that way, and as for nobody feeling damaged, obviously some people do.

Little side note. Back when my mother gave blood their was a policy in place, that if you gave blood and needed it later on, you wouldn't be charged for it. Seems like a strong finiancial incetive to give blood.

The highest risk group is in fact heterosexual females aged 18-25.

Only because they tend to be the ones getting blood tests.