Gay men aren't allowed to donate blood.

More precisely, it's illegal to accept a donation of blood from a man who has had sex with another man since 1977.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/11/panel-votes-keep-restrictions-gay-blood-donations

Am I the only one who's never heard of this before? Scary.

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Known about it for quite some time. It's a blood disease thing. Women who've had sex with men, who have had sex with men, cannot donate blood either.
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I've known about it for awhile as well. Every time I donate blood at the PSBC they ask a gauntlet of questions, including several pertaining to exactly what you mentioned. It definitely caught me off guard the first time.
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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Bah, stupid typos. This is the same message without the bad spelling. :P

It's to guard against STDs commonly gotten through gay sex. It's nothing against homosexuals personally, it's just there's a higher risk factor for their blood to be carrying AIDs or other such diseases. To me it's neither surprising nor scary.
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There's also probably a supporting statistic about people with HIV/AIDS who don't know they have it and so wouldn't say they have it during the pre-screening.

Of course I've known about it. Of course, the question may be asked, why don't they ban black people from giving blood? After all, statistics show that they have a higher rate of HIV than normal, too, right? And it's not like people can't lie (I know lots of people that do), so they need to test the blood anyway.
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It's ridiculous I'd say.
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Okay, good to see I'm not the only who thinks this is crazy. Discrimination is no substitute for blood tests. Anybody can get HIV without knowing it.

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Many real-world problems are contingency problems, because exact prediction is impossible. For this reason, many people keep their eyes open while driving.

From: Jacehan | Posted: 11/11/2010 9:13:37 AM | #007

Of course, the question may be asked, why don't they ban black people from giving blood?

I think there was a point in US history, not long ago, when black people's blood wasn't used to treat white people.

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Many real-world problems are contingency problems, because exact prediction is impossible. For this reason, many people keep their eyes open while driving.

Yeah, I mean if they're testing it anyway, what's the problem, that some dude's going to waste their time? I guess I can see the precautionary argument before they had reliable testing, but that's pretty weird now.

Although on the other hand, some of the other restrictions are pretty baby-with-the-bathwater. Maybe they ran the numbers and discouraging another whatever per cent of the population from donating wasn't going to break the bank? But I guess pre-HIV-era policy + institutional inertia, and not wanting the religious right to start picketing blood drive vans probably factor into that equation pretty hard.
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