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Blood
16 years ago
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So tonight, as I do every few months, I went and donated blood. Apparently my blood type is rare or especially useful or something, so they always make a point of phoning to remind me that the clinics are coming up, or sending me form letters thanking me for my selfless donations or whatever.
Hey, doesn't cost anything, and it's probably good karma, so why not?
The thing is, there's one part of it that always gives me pause. You go into a little booth with a nurse and she asks you a bunch of questions to make sure your blood is okay to donate, ranging from the obvious (Do you have AIDS/ever tested positive for HIV or AIDS) to the understandable (In the last year have you received a blood transfusion in Africa) to the amusing (In your job or any previous jobs have you handled monkeys or their bodily fluids).
But every time, they also ask me the following question.
"Have you had sex with another man, even one time, since 1977?"
A glance at the paper they read from reveals that if you are female, they are supposed to ask if you have had sex with a man who has had sex with a man since 1977. No, I don't know why they're so specific with the year.
Now, this isn't an issue with me personally, I just say no and we move on, but every single time I find myself wondering what they would do if someone said yes. I'm pretty sure it would be illegal to just kick someone out because they were gay. Would they slap a little 'GAY' sticker on the blood bag? I get the gay-AIDS connection, but isn't asking every single male donor if they've done the horizontal mambo with a dude excessive? I can see where someone would be openly offended by that, actually.
Anyone out there have any thoughts on the subject?
Hey, doesn't cost anything, and it's probably good karma, so why not?
The thing is, there's one part of it that always gives me pause. You go into a little booth with a nurse and she asks you a bunch of questions to make sure your blood is okay to donate, ranging from the obvious (Do you have AIDS/ever tested positive for HIV or AIDS) to the understandable (In the last year have you received a blood transfusion in Africa) to the amusing (In your job or any previous jobs have you handled monkeys or their bodily fluids).
But every time, they also ask me the following question.
"Have you had sex with another man, even one time, since 1977?"
A glance at the paper they read from reveals that if you are female, they are supposed to ask if you have had sex with a man who has had sex with a man since 1977. No, I don't know why they're so specific with the year.
Now, this isn't an issue with me personally, I just say no and we move on, but every single time I find myself wondering what they would do if someone said yes. I'm pretty sure it would be illegal to just kick someone out because they were gay. Would they slap a little 'GAY' sticker on the blood bag? I get the gay-AIDS connection, but isn't asking every single male donor if they've done the horizontal mambo with a dude excessive? I can see where someone would be openly offended by that, actually.
Anyone out there have any thoughts on the subject?
not that I support sex before you are old enough to want it :P
"are you gay?"
"no"
"Does your mom know you're gay?"
Though, this gives me the amusing image of having some hardcore right wing fundamentalist being given blood from a gay donor. More specifically, having them hear about that and being all "I don't want none of that queer blood in me" or some such nonsense.
*As a side note, the states that attempted this later 2 flaws with this. A) There is no feasible means to monitor this, and B) Gay men are just as likely to not take their vacation dollars into that economy. While these laws crop up every now and then, they never seem to last long. XD
PS. It seems my side note has turned out longer than my original note. I need to work on my ranting issues. <_<
Apparently open-orifice exposure to fecal matter raises the propensity of contracting diseases or common illnesses. Certain diseases are more common by this transfer. According to the Federal Census Bureau, monogamous male homosexuals practicing anal sex are no less likely to contract the same battery of diseases and illnesses (I didn't know that, so that was an interesting tid-bit). Where women are concerned (and this is regarding the question posed to women about having sex with men who've had sex with other men), apparently the issue is quite a bit more important--women tend to be up to 50% more likely to contract venereal and blood-born diseases than men. Strange, but whatever. At first it didn't seem to matter, because if the blood wasn't infected people weren't at risk of infection (makes sense), however--individuals who have contracted and defeated any of a number of diseases will have a higher antibody count in their blood-stream designed to combat the defeated disease (i.e. the syph, gonorrhea, etc...). Sounds like a good thing, right? I thought that would be great--not only are you not going to contract the disease from this packet of blood, but you'll be immunized against it! Unfortunately, not true. Medical research programs and bureaucracies similar to the FCB (see above) are coming to the conclusion that immunizations against certain diseases actually make you more likely to contract said disease (case-in-point, the flu--thus far, every wave of immunizations against the flu has resulted in an epidemic-scale surge in infection, particularly in immunized patients).
This next part is just my thought coupled with a little legal research (thank God for database research privileges). I'm not just blowing smoke here, I'm actually working on my Juris Doctorate--I'm a second-year student in law school, and I have special privileges when it comes to using Lexis Nexis and Westlaw (online databases) and law libraries in court-houses. My conclusion:
It's not at all illegal for them to deny a "disqualifying" individual the right to donate blood, for this reason specifically: No one has a right to donate blood. They have no duty to accept your blood, and you have no right to force it on them. The medical industry also has special privileges that allows them to override certain provided rights in instances that could be threatening to foreseeable liabilities and/or give rise to malpractice issues on the grounds of a negligence theory of recovery. From what I understand, victims of malpractice may, in some instances, be allowed by the court to argue on a theory of res ipsa loquitur (basically, "The thing speaks for itself") and strict liability, which would mean very bad things for the doctor or nurse or hospital who/that prescribed infected blood to a patient. Furthermore, because medical science has shown practicing homosexual men to be an inherent high risk of blood-born infection to various "loathsome" (legal word, not mine) diseases, blood collectors have a duty to mitigate risk of infection to receiving patients by filtering all donors through a battery of requirements and limitations, like the ones listed above.