There After My Blood!! - Page 2

Re: There After My Blood!!

Eric, thank you for that very thoughtful post, and for reminding us how vitally important blood donations are.

Re: There After My Blood!!

Double Post.

Re: There After My Blood!!

I'm sorry, but this concern about actually losing a liability case in today's society is bogus. First off, recieving blood is not mandatory. It may help you live yes, but you are consented and told of the risks. Then you make the decision. It's rare cases where the person recieving the blood can not make an informed decision. Secondly, the blood is routinely tested for HIV to prevent it's transmission. And believe me, it's not a low rate (as compared to when the blood products killed off most hemophiliacs) because gay people aren't donating blood. They are and they lie.

Simply put, the bloodbank policies are remnants of homophobia from the Reagan era. It's a blanket policy not based in science and was an over-reaction. They deny gay men for their sexual preference, as opposed to being denied (rightly so) if they are whores or IV drug abusers. But, a 20 year monogamous gay male can not give blood while a whore can.

What's disturbing to me is that blood bank people are not doing anything about it. It's not my role to get a bloodbank to change its policy. It is the bloodbank leaders who are supposed to be educated and make scientifically sound decisions who should do this.

So, I'm wondering which is worse morally.. being a monogamous gay man and lying to donate blood or witholding that donation and decreasing the supply?

Chris

Re: There After My Blood!!

Too bad the prohibition didn't apply to Ted Haggard...that man lives a WAY more outrageous lifestyle than I do!

Re: There After My Blood!!

Hmmm, isn't 1 min 10 secs 70 seconds? So you'd rather choose the dinner that cooks in 90 secons over the one that cooks in 70 seconds, because you don't want to wait?

Kudos to those that donate. Bonnie, is the scar tissue really that bad? After all, at most you get stuck once a month or less, as opposed to drug users who'd do it daily. When I was in treatment, I was getting jabbed every three weeks (although I only had six rounds), and never developed any scars of any sort. Then again, 6 v. 100 is no comparison.

Re: There After My Blood!!

LOL , but he must be like me - I don't have time to do math either.

Re: There After My Blood!!

D, don't sweat it. I also used to have a job where we worked in "metric time", and I know how difficult it is participating in the real world after a long day at work. (The math is SO much easier at work!) I remember once setting my VCR to 6:50 to catch a show that actually started at 6:30.

Now I'll never know how Jim Rickford and Angel got together...



(And if it makes you feel even better, being a software guy, I once wrote a check for $1000 with the text written as "One Thousand Twenty Four". They're both 1K, right? )

Re: There After My Blood!!

http://www.injuryboard.com/view.cfm/Topic=444

The FDA is responsible for overseeing the nation's blood supply. Blood donors are now asked specific and very direct questions about risk factors that could indicate possible infection with a transmissible disease. This "up-front" screening eliminates approximately 90 percent of unsuitable donors.
Chris - that would include drug users and people who have paid or been paid for sex, (or as you lable them, whores.) It also excludes many other classes of people - like those who have vacationed in high-risk areas as I have.


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...55C0A960958260

Today's decision, written by Justice Stewart G. Pollock, said the association of blood banks was financially liable because it had breached its "duty of care" to Mr. Snyder by rejecting the recommendations for tougher screening of donors...


http://www.thebody.com/cdc/news_upda...s_lawsuit.html

The donor gave blood in March, days after being infected with HIV and before the virus in the blood had built up sufficiently to register on tests.


http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medi...p?newsid=30874

Couture sued Belle Bonfils in December 2002, alleging he was hired by the center in August 2001 as a mobile phlebotomist and was first asked and later forced to take a different job because he told his supervisors that he is HIV-positive.

http://www.hemophilia-litigation.com/

It is believed that three of these companies, Alpha, Baxter and Cutter, recruited and paid donors from high risk populations, including prisoners, intravenous drug users, and blood centers with predominantly homosexual donors,



There are plenty of other examples - just google it. You will find that many blood banks innitially reisted screening gay donors but through lawsuits and FDA policies they were pressured into compliance. Scientifically sound, sadly, does not always work as a defense in court.

Re: There After My Blood!!

You've made many good points. I was a regular donor and now plan on starting again.

Sure, donating is inconvenient and sometimes hurts a little but those are excuses not reasons for not donating. Be honest, most Americans just don't want to donate, but are more than happy to receive blood when they need it.

Where I used to work, held regular donations days when the blood mobile would be there. If only 50% of the work force donated, that mobile would be there for weeks, not a couple of days.

I understand not liking the phone calls asking for your blood. Keep in mind the person making the phone call is part of a system trying to restore someones health or to save a life. If Americans were more generous with their blood, the phone calls wouldn't be so necessary.

The caller who said "I need this blood to save a life", may have been making an assumption that since they were out our nearly out of a certain type, and since it's almost certain that in a span of a few days that it would be needed, it was a matter of life or death. It's a certainty that there will be auto or other accidents, necessitating the use of blood. There also may be a patient who requires blood on a regular basis.

I'm wondering if the collecting agencies wouldn't have more success if they could somehow better illustrate to the average Joe, what happens to their blood. I'm speaking in general, not specific recipients.

Re: There After My !!

Heh. I sort-of know the feeling, just that it applies to hours and minutes -- when I record my time spent on matters, the program captures it in hours, so 90 minutes is 1.5 hours. So stick to 0.9 minutes and you'd be fine...

BTW, on thinking about it, I realised that the gauge of the needles used in blood donation must be relatively big, compared to the needles used to deliver injections (even intravenous ones rather than into muscle). So Bonnie, big up to you and your badge of honour, may it not be confused as a mark of dishonour.

Re: There After My Blood!!

I'm still thinking that phone calls are not the greatest idea. If someone is going to give, they will give. I can't imagine that calling them to ask (during their personal time) is all that effective.

But I may not be the best example - I usually tend to donate to worthwhile charities that don't beg me for donations. For some reason I feel better about donating to someone who wasn't expecting me to. I would actually think twice if someone tried to guilt me into donating, even if I were going to anyways.

Re: There After My Blood!!

On the right arm it's about an inch long and maybe a quarter of an inch across. On the left, it's about 2 inches long and a half inch across. That vein is "closer" to the surface. And when I was doing platelet apheresis, that's a needle in one arm taking the blood out and another needle in the other to return the red cells and fluids. The "nurses" sometimes have a hard time getting 'around' it due to the possibility of a piece of scartissue can clog the needle. It's only really noticable during the summer since the scars don't tan as dark as the rest of my arm.
I must be a glutton because I keep going back to donate again no matter how much it momentarily hurt.
When I worked for the Post Office, the bloodmobile would stop at our facility (there was a few hundred workers) and we could go give blood on company time.

Re: There After My Blood!!

When I contracted Hep B, I got a wonderful little letter from the Red Cross informing me that they would never be accepting my blood for the rest of my life and would I care to be involved with a study group on Hepatitis B.
I prompting ignored the letter and that was the end of that. Took myself off the market (no great tragedy, considering...) until I could get re-tested at a lab a couple weeks later, found out my immune system had cleared the infection, and that was the end of that. No nasty phone calls, a guilt-free out. Only long term affect has been that I take Advil (Ibprofen) exclusively now instead of Tylenol, since I figure my liver's been through enough.

Re: There After My Blood!!

I guess you've completely missed my point. It is that you should screen people based on their whoredom, not on their being gay. Perhaps I need to say not all gays are whores. And not all straights are monogamous. Therefore, I would rather have blood from a gay male with 1 sexual partner than a straight female with 40, this year.

Your first example is from a personal injury website? OK...
Anyways, it only reinforces my point of questions regarding risk factors, i.e. how often do you have sex, with who, etc... They don't ask if you have sex with black men (if you are a female) and exclude you, but black men have the highest rates of HIV conversion nowadays.

Your second example first off is 10 years old and was referring to activity from the 80's. I specifically stated in my response that I was speaking about today's climate. Anyways, I don't agree that the man should have won (but I'm no lawyer), but he got the blood in 1984 it appears, and blood bank operations then are nowhere near similar to today. Which only reinforces my point.

Your third example is a discussion about a plan to sue, not an actual suit (though it may have turned into one). In this case, the donor was alleged to have contracted HIV shortly prior to donating blood and didn't know he was positive. Again, proper question taking would exclude him if he had excessive risk from his sexual activities. Secondly, the donor could very well have been a heterosexual female who had sex with a guy a month earlier. I fail to see how this example justifies gay bans on donating. In fact, this donor could have been an IV drug abuser.

I don't even understand the relevance of your fourth example. This guy sued because the place fired him because he was HIV positive and drawing blood from other people. I don't think he should be fired. Do you? Do you think every doctor who is HIV+ should be banned from practice?

And in your last example, it again is from activity TWENTY years ago.... What does that have to do with today's activities?



Show me a google link that is relevant to why, in the proper setting (i.e. a bloodbank that assesses risk based upon activities that lead to HIV) a gay man should not be allowed to give blood. And dont' tell me that it is sound reasoning that a gay man in a monogamous relationship for 20 years should not give blood, but a man/woman who has 20 sexual partners a year can.

Lastly, I didn't ask (as far as I recall) WHY the ban is there. I asked WHY is it still there...

Chris

Re: There After My Blood!!

Chris - you have my permission to snip my posts if you wish when quoting.

I can address all of your posts with the one link you missed - the first one - where the FDA mandates screening.

Every other link is critical of blood banks donor-screening policies - as you can see by the text I included with the links. Wether it was today, last year or twenty years ago blood banks are still being held liable TODAY. Until that liability is eliminated and the FDA relaxes the standards blood banks have no option but to comply or risk huge losses - which a non-profit organization can hardly afford. Blood banks have been so scruitinized that some have become over-ambitious in protecting the blood supply - but who can blame them when there are entire websites out there dedicated to finding a reason to sue them?