Sex.
Yes please.
Sex.
Yes please.
I may be giving blood soonIt's on my 101 things. Not sure if I'd be allowed though as...
1. It's possible that I'm anemic
2. I'm currently on medication
I was going to, and just lie about the gay bit, since I don't agree with it, but do think blood donation is important. But I've just been on the NBS website, and I can't atm anyway, because I'm on antibiotics.
Here's another one... the NBS doesn't want our 'gay blood', but the transplant service is happy to have our 'gay organs'... what do you think about that?
Exactly. One, I don't have HIV, and two, they screen anyway. And as for Nym's reply about organs, I don't think they thoroughly clean the organ do they? I'm sure some traces of blood/virus could easily remain in them?
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The simple truth, Giz, is that there is nothing any more risky about accepting blood from gay people as a donation as there is accepting straight blood. The HIV infection rate is now higher in heteros than homos in young sexually active people, and since the NBS now screen blood for every imaginable evil virus about, they know as well as we do that there is no reason to keep their homophobic policy today. But they still do. Why would they do that, we have to ask ourselves?
But the gestation period of the virus happens just the same in straight people, but they don't say that straight people who have had sex in the last 3 months can't donate. And they don't let you donate if you've EVER had gay sex, not if you've had gay sex in the past 3 months.
What about black people? Not to sound racist, but as far as I'm aware, it IS a fact that HIV and AIDS is much more common in Africans, right?
They will change eventually, hopefully. There are enough protests about.
Yes, HIV is generally more common in Africans in AFRICA, I'm not sure about amongst the African population in the UK though. It is through the roof in Africa though - to be blunt, it's because they are very promiscuous and won't use condoms, and they have no screening system to stop mothers passing the virus on to their children.
And because certain countries, even so called developed democracies such as South Africa refuse to accept the link between HIV and AIDS.
They will change eventually, hopefully. There are enough protests about.
Yes, HIV is generally more common in Africans in AFRICA, I'm not sure about amongst the African population in the UK though. It is through the roof in Africa though - to be blunt, it's because they are very promiscuous and won't use condoms, and they have no screening system to stop mothers passing the virus on to their children.
They also won;t take blood from people with piercings etc. The issue is one of risk taking behaviour. Male homosexual sex is a higher risk of BBV transmission - including both Hep B and C as well as HIV. It may be discriminatory, but the rules also discriminate against those having foreign holidays and piercings.
Screening a sample for HIV costs a fair amount of money because the blood is processed while the test is being run (the test taking 24hrs). Blood products from more than one person are pooled, such that if one sample is contaminated with a virus, or bacterial infection, then the whole batch must be destroyed, thus meaning a greater loss in terms of money and resource than just one sample.
Thus in order to reduce the number of samples lost in this way, they try to screen people by excluding those whose activities put them at a higher risk of having a blood borne disease.
These day the anaemia test is done by dropping blood into a copper sulfate solution and looking to see if the blood floats or sinks, sinc epulse oximetry is not a reliable measure of your anaemic status.
The Scottish NBTS questionnaire is here http://scotblood.co.uk/docs/dsr_m_2006.pdf and of the 40ish questions, only ine could be seen as anti-homosexual (IMO) -q43. Even then, this only means that one of the nurses will talk with you further to see what your risk status is. If you only have protected sex, with a longterm partner, and both of you are clean, then pending a blood test saying the above, you can donate, and such is noted on your file, and each time they will check that that status has not changed.
All organ donors are tested for HIV / Hep B / Hep C, and if the donor had been in hospital anyway, their status would be known. Hep B and C are more of a barrier to transplant than HIV, but given that all transplant recipients are immunosupressed, giving then an infection just shortens their lifespan.
Those branches of the nHS dealing with donations and transplants do actually consult widely on their policies, and aim to achieve a balance between risk of infection to recipients, and equality for donors. Sadly, they sometimes get it wrong, but UK public opinion and the law is very firmly of the opinion that where there is ambiguity, NHS staff have to assume the worst case scenario in order to protect the recipient from risk of infection which could shorten their life and complicate their condition.
The accepted figure in Scotland is that 11% of population is homosexual, with approximately the same again having had intercourse with a member of the same sex.
Ah we agree on something!!!now now, I wouldn't call South Africa a democracy, nor would I call the UK a democracy though![]()
NHS Scotland is a lot better than NHS England & Wales
I may be giving blood soonIt's on my 101 things. Not sure if I'd be allowed though as...
1. It's possible that I'm anemic
2. I'm currently on medication
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Because Stephen Fry Says So!