Homosexuality is as much a risk factor for obtaining HIV as obesity is to heart disease
It's just a fact and all the political correctness in the world won't make the facts any different. If only us fat people had more political clout, maybe we wouldn't be so stigmatized! Ken Schram, a local TV news editorialist jumped onto the anti-Bush bandwagon as the FDA has issued new rules banning gay men from donating sperm. A simple search on the web in regards to this topic brings up a host of nonesense. Here is Schram's editorial, equally full of nonsense.
And here is my reply to Ken:
Mr. Schram,
You couldn't be more wrong about this and I think you may be allowing your disdain for Bush to get in the way of the facts - unless you are simply babbling flaming nonsense for your readers/viewers entertainment. If you criticize the FDA (and Bush?) for not letting gays donate semen, you might want to ask why blood centers don't also (and have not for a LONG time) allow them to donate blood.
Quoting from the Puget Sound Blood Center's policy:
"Individuals at a higher risk for acquiring this illness [HIV] and/or transmitting the virus should not donate blood. These individuals are:
* Any male who has had sex with another male since 1977, even one time."
Clearly they too are simply trying to "go after gay men"
Come on man, are you serious about your editorial? I can't believe it. I'd be willing to bet that if you did a little more looking you'd find that the blood donor "no-no" list is identical with semen donors. As someone who does infectious disease research, I can tell you that if it isn't, it should be.
There are HUNDREDS of published studies that show that HIV is a "blood born pathogen", the FDA doesn't cite them because it is so widely known that they probably didn't think they'd need to. Clearly you yourself have proven that they were mistaken. It's akin to criticizing an NTSB aircraft accident report for not noting the role gravity played in the disaster.
Regards,
James Ferrenberg
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Comments
He was shocked and horrified.
The scary thing was that he kept his card and stayed an donor: no one will, of course, check when they need his liver.
Face it dude - you're a bigot.
One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
I think if we are intellectually honest, downtownlad, we are all bigots to some degree. In fact, these days I'd say people that toss the term around in such a cursory fashion are often guilty of projection.
HIV tests are expensive (and if they aren't they are less specific and less accurate)its easier to exclude a small percentage of the population.
You, like, me, were born with the morally conservative gene. We can't help it! We were born this way.
BTW, it's "blood-borne".
BTW, it can be either borne or born it's the same word, though I think you are right in assuming that your spelling is more common: my last BBP training certainly tossed the "e" on.
And then I find Ken trying to politicize virological science.
:)