Blood ban evidence contested

A final day of evidence was heard in the case challenging the Australian Red Cross Blood Service ban on gay blood donation last Friday.

Evidence was presented to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal in the case brought by Launceston man Michael Cain, challenging the amount of HIV risk associated with the gay population.

US epidemiologist and bio-statisti-cian Dr Scott Halpern challenged calculations presented by Australian epidemiologist and former Red Cross advisor, Professor John Kaldor.

Halpern said Kaldor’s evidence had significantly over-estimated the prevalence of HIV in the gay community and failed to distinguish risk with those in multiple as opposed to monogamous relationships.

The Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group has dismissed Kaldor’s previous evidence that even low-risk gay men are still at higher risk than high-risk heterosexuals.

Kaldor gave evidence in early October saying he supported the Red Cross ban as it gave -œpublic confidence.

He said the 12 month ban period was conservative.

He told the hearing the risk was associated with the prevalence of HIV in sexual partners, and the prevalence in gay men is -œof the order of 100-fold or more.

Halpern has contested this, saying it is -œlikely there are certain groups of heterosexual men whose risk of transmitting HIV via blood donation is at least as high as the risk among certain groups of men who have sex with men.

TGLRG spokesman Rodney Croome said the evidence is crucial to proving Cain’s case.

-œThe raw statistics that Professor Kaldor was using left the tribunal with an unrealistic understanding of the risk associated with HIV transmission with gay sex, Croome told Southern Star.

-œIf we approach the issue differently with different methodology and different statistics then we find that the risk associated with gay safe sex is far lower than the risk associated with unsafe heterosexual sex.

Cain brought his case to the tribunal in 2005 after he was refused the opportunity to donate blood because he had male-to-male sex in the previous 12 months.

Cain is seeking to change the ban on gay blood donation to anyone who has unsafe sex, rather than the gender of sexual partner.

The Red Cross has argued the exclusion of gay men is based on a statistically higher incidence of blood-borne diseases (including HIV) which may be incubating in the blood at the time of donation.
Closing submissions on the medical aspects of the case begin this Friday.