More on Pollution
Here’s what the marrow people have to say:
# “Are you at risk for HIV (the AIDS virus) or Hepatitis?”
# Volunteers who are at risk for HIV (the AIDS virus) or hepatitis cannot be donors. HIV can be transmitted through marrow donation. Based on FDA requirements for blood donors, if your answer to any of the following questions is “yes,” you are considered at risk for either HIV or hepatitis and must disqualify yourself from the Program.
#
# Are you a male who had sex with another male even once since 1977?
There you have it. Doesn’t matter if I have used a rubber every time, that I test regularly, and that I take all the reasonable precautions (unreasonable = Bush administration and Catholic Church strategy: total abstinence). Man-on-man means I’m out. And so is anyone else who has had sex with even one man in the last 26 years.
To be fair, it’s not their fault. They’re just following the guidelines that the Red Cross and the FDA have set. But it’s still a ridiculous, stigmatizing, homophobic (yes, it’s that too) law.
Ecto blogging software
20 May 2003 at 12:41 pm.
OK so this is really personal, but I’m with you, because I can’t donate blood or anything because I’ve had sex with a man who’s had sex with a man since 1977. That really freakin’ pisses me off. He tests clean. I test clean. But I still can’t donate blood.
20 May 2003 at 5:55 pm.
One problem is that this will eventually rule large parts of the US population out. There are gonna be lots of women who will be in similar situations to yours. Pretty soon, it’ll only be completely straight males who can donate anything. I won’t touch the social theory implications of that, since plenty of others might also wish to. Again, I could have slept with 100 women, and as long as I had no other risk factors, they would have at least taken my blood for testing.