Red Cross maintains gay ban
Gay blood donation campaigners say a new Red Cross Blood Service measure to halve the waiting time for donors with piercings and tattoos is unfair.
Tasmanian gay blood donor campaigner Michael Cain, who took the Red Cross Blood Service to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal over its blanket ban on men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) donating blood — said not reducing the waiting period for MSM was “flawed logic”.
“There’s no reason why their rule on male-to-male sex can’t be changed in line with this,” Cain told Sydney Star Observer.
“There’s plenty of evidence to show that a six-month window period is sufficient for screening purposes.
“What they’re effectively saying is gay sex is inherently diseased, but it’s unsafe sex, not gay sex that poses a risk.”
The Red Cross Blood Service will next month introduce improved testing so hepatitis can be detected in its window period after initial laboratory testing when the blood is first taken.
The new reduced waiting time – from a year to six months – will affect those who’ve had acupuncture, body piercings or tattoos.
Blood Service Safety Specialist Dr Tony Keller said the new screening test used “state of the art technology”.
According to the Red Cross the new test doesn’t provide a “significant change” to detecting HIV in the window period.
Cain, however has contested the Red Cross’ claims.
“Epidemiological evidence presented by the Red Cross’ own advisors during my anti-discrimination case on gay blood donation showed that a six-month gay deferral poses no risk to the blood supply,” he said.
Earlier this year, the Red Cross announced it would review its policy on MSM donating blood, however said the review was yet to start.
“A full independent external review will be conducted in 2010 and 2011,” a Red Cross spokeswoman said.
The issue isn’t about what’s FAIR, it’s about science and medicine. And in both cases, the Red Cross policy is stupid. Unprotected sex is a problem and HIV is a problem – not the sex of the participants. Besides, we have a blood shortage, and it’s retarded in the extreme to think it’s OK for every professional involved in the taking, testing and storage of blood and the transferring of it to the patient to be gay (risk of needle stick injury or contamination) but the blood donor cannot be, irrespective of HIV status.
Further, it’s idiotic to assume that one’s self-identification as gay or straight is a) reliable or b) has anything whatsoever to do with HIV exposure. I doubt that George Rekers, David Campbell or their compatriots – or indeed any one of the “bi-curious” married suburban men one finds advertising for anonymous sex in every urban street publication everywhere – would have accurately identified themselves as gay to the Red Cross when asked. Likewise, it’s – excuse the pun – asinine of the Red Cross to assume females don’t participate in high-risk behaviors, such as unprotected anal sex (oh but nice Chrisitan ladies don’t, right?).
IMHO, ALL blood donors would ideally provide HIV/Hep C test results going back six months prior to donation, irrespective of sexual orientation and leave it at that.
Having said this, I’m not surprised – the Red Cross is a Christian organization, and will collaborate with sister organizations the Red Crescent but not the Red Star of David…
The Jesus Cross, has made this decision based on extreme homophobia and not fact. The facts are countries that removed this discrimination, and focused on risky activity, saw an improvement in blood supply quality. It is risky activity that contaminates blood, not sexuality.
Remember the Jesus Cross people do not know how many of the GLBTQI people exist in Australia. It is not like we have ever been counted on the census is it. They have just made assumptions.