[How is it ‘absurd’ when this very small population is responsible for majority of HIV transmission?](https://i.imgur.com/aycrtA8.png)
Well, this law wasn’t there because of homophobia, but simply because gay men have about 20 times more chances to be HIV positive than the general population according to the WHO. This is simply due to anal sex being much more likely to transmit the disease than vaginal or oral sex. At the end of the day, blood should be tested properly, but surprisingly it isn’t necessarily that easy to detect HIV in it, which means there’s always a risk. Then again, anybody can lie in this poll before doing the donation, so it wasn’t groundbreaking either…
Still, the decision process leading to this law being abrogated isn’t right IMO. This new version of the law was officially made to « fight discrimination », whereas the previous one was due to scientific inquiry in the midst of the HIV propagation peak in the 80s. I’d be more happy if laws like this were given scientific backing rather than an ideological one. Anyways, as I said it’s not that important in this case, as people could lie and cheat the tests anyway.
Technically they could give blood I think if they didn’t have any gay sex in the last three months if I recall correctly.
Yeah that was ridiculous.
Not absurd, just medical facts
There’s no real “right” being protected here, and it does appear that there’s a cost/risk involved. I’m not sure I see the point.
No gay person’s life will be improved because of this.
It’s not absurd at all.
Gay men are much more likely to have HIV and blood testing is done in batches to cut down costs and prevent hiv infection of a test misses hiv because HIV tests are complicated.
Virtually 90% of hiv cases are GAY MEN
What is absurd is rejecting science/statistics in the name of political correctness
The shocking part is how a supposedly modern european country still had shit like this in the XXI century.
I think a study said blood from gay people contained too many rainbows to be used
Not every dose of blood is tested. What happens if someone gets infected due this? Is this a sacrifice for political correctness that has to be made?
Great job France! It’s good to see science and proven methods being adopted by more and more European countries. While it’s not great that many countries had this wrong policy in place for so long it’s even worse that there are still countries which are keeping it. This discriminatory and anti-scientific deferral or ban needs to be removed everywhere and replaced with proper risk assessment and effective tests on every blood bag (for all the dangerous infectious diseases).
It’s all fun and games until you or your loved ones get hiv from a blood transfusion
I’ve no idea why giving blood is couched in terms of “rights”. You gain nothing personally by giving blood. No one knows you’ve given blood unless you advertise the fact.
What exactly is at stake from forbidding gays from giving blood? Who loses?
To whoever think this is “unsafe – there for medical reason – dangerous” etc
It isn’t, it’s just medical and political laziness. In Italy this ban was lifted since 2001, late health minister Umberto veronesi removed it because italy chose a personal risk evaluation between medic and donor.
Donor get checked before the donation, the blood get checked after the donation and only after everything has been checked the blood can be used.
The “this is a dangerous political maneuver” is homophobic shit, gay rights are almost irrelevant in this case, it’s mostly something that will help people in need of blood and just marginally involves gay people and their rights.
22 comments
Oh shit. I have no excuse now 🙃
[How is it ‘absurd’ when this very small population is responsible for majority of HIV transmission?](https://i.imgur.com/aycrtA8.png)
Well, this law wasn’t there because of homophobia, but simply because gay men have about 20 times more chances to be HIV positive than the general population according to the WHO. This is simply due to anal sex being much more likely to transmit the disease than vaginal or oral sex. At the end of the day, blood should be tested properly, but surprisingly it isn’t necessarily that easy to detect HIV in it, which means there’s always a risk. Then again, anybody can lie in this poll before doing the donation, so it wasn’t groundbreaking either…
Still, the decision process leading to this law being abrogated isn’t right IMO. This new version of the law was officially made to « fight discrimination », whereas the previous one was due to scientific inquiry in the midst of the HIV propagation peak in the 80s. I’d be more happy if laws like this were given scientific backing rather than an ideological one. Anyways, as I said it’s not that important in this case, as people could lie and cheat the tests anyway.
[deleted]
Maybe Greece coordinated with France? https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1175255/ban-on-gay-or-bisexual-men-giving-blood-lifted/
**Finally.**
Gay blood 😋
Oh we still have that law I believe. 🙁
Technically they could give blood I think if they didn’t have any gay sex in the last three months if I recall correctly.
Yeah that was ridiculous.
Not absurd, just medical facts
There’s no real “right” being protected here, and it does appear that there’s a cost/risk involved. I’m not sure I see the point.
No gay person’s life will be improved because of this.
It’s not absurd at all.
Gay men are much more likely to have HIV and blood testing is done in batches to cut down costs and prevent hiv infection of a test misses hiv because HIV tests are complicated.
Virtually 90% of hiv cases are GAY MEN
What is absurd is rejecting science/statistics in the name of political correctness
The shocking part is how a supposedly modern european country still had shit like this in the XXI century.
I think a study said blood from gay people contained too many rainbows to be used
Not every dose of blood is tested. What happens if someone gets infected due this? Is this a sacrifice for political correctness that has to be made?
Great job France! It’s good to see science and proven methods being adopted by more and more European countries. While it’s not great that many countries had this wrong policy in place for so long it’s even worse that there are still countries which are keeping it. This discriminatory and anti-scientific deferral or ban needs to be removed everywhere and replaced with proper risk assessment and effective tests on every blood bag (for all the dangerous infectious diseases).
It’s all fun and games until you or your loved ones get hiv from a blood transfusion
I’ve no idea why giving blood is couched in terms of “rights”. You gain nothing personally by giving blood. No one knows you’ve given blood unless you advertise the fact.
What exactly is at stake from forbidding gays from giving blood? Who loses?
To whoever think this is “unsafe – there for medical reason – dangerous” etc
It isn’t, it’s just medical and political laziness. In Italy this ban was lifted since 2001, late health minister Umberto veronesi removed it because italy chose a personal risk evaluation between medic and donor.
Donor get checked before the donation, the blood get checked after the donation and only after everything has been checked the blood can be used.
[Here a pdf on how it works](https://www.centronazionalesangue.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Italian-Blood-System-2019-Vol.-1.pdf), ENG
Last HIV infection due to a transfusion has been registered in 1995, [italian government website](https://www.donailsangue.salute.gov.it/donaresangue/dettaglioNotizieCns.jsp?lingua=italiano&area=cns&menu=newsMedia&sottomenu=news&id=57), IT
The “this is a dangerous political maneuver” is homophobic shit, gay rights are almost irrelevant in this case, it’s mostly something that will help people in need of blood and just marginally involves gay people and their rights.
once again, r/europe shows how homophobic it is.
Am I wrong or it’s still the case in Italy?
Based
Germany still behind on this :/