Giving Blood & Donating Organs

[Ouch!]

I am an organ donor. The FDA prevents me from giving blood because I lived in Norway for 5 years in the early 1990s.

[Shorty]

Really? :O_O: What's wrong with Norway?

[Denmark]

probably just because he lived outside the US, not Norway specifically /hypothesis

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I'd like to give blood, though, but I'm not allowed since I've had sex with other guys.

I really, really, don't understand the whole "please wait 12 months if you've had sex with other men". The only possible reason would be HIV, but we no longer live in 1980. HIV can be transmitted from any gender. The whole thing doesn't make sense. It's stupid really, and makes homosexuals not want to donate.

I really, really, don't understand the whole "please wait 12 months if you've had sex with other men". The only possible reason would be HIV, but we no longer live in 1980. HIV can be transmitted from any gender. The whole thing doesn't make sense. It's stupid really, and makes homosexuals not want to donate.

It takes a few months for HIV to present itself in a blood test, and gay men are more likely to have HIV by a very wide margin. The 12 months is just a big contingency measure. You don't mess around when it comes to HIV, sensibilities of the situation or not.

Forewarning: This issue is something that really bothers me, so I may be a bit overly reactional but I will try to not let it show.

@Formy: You are lucky, in most countries it is an indefinite ban from donation blood is you are a man who has sex with another man (MSM). Though they are looking to reform those policies in the USA and Canada, it is still like that.

@Old Manus: It takes 3 months after exposure before you can test for it. Moreover, now-a-days there are tests that are super reliable (I think it is something like 99.x% accurate) that take 10 minutes to check your status and requires only a few drops of blood. If it comes up positive then they test more thoroughly to make sure that it wasn't a false-positive. Moreover, the testing that is used for blood donations, in Canada at least, is rather rigorous.

Now, I do realize that MSM accounts for the majority of new HIV cases and that is something that not only the LGBT communities but also communities at large need to take responsibility for and work harder to decrease that. Some people's mentality regarding sex and HIV are rather ridiculous. To elaborate, there are those that believe that because they are gay, they will get it eventually so might as well have fun, or that in developed countries it is a mostly livable, etc...Anyways, such thoughts really need to be closely examined and done away with. Now do I think that MSM should be able to donate blood? Yes. Do I think there should be a complete lift? No. I do think that the indefinite prohibition is, ultimately, homophobic (I will get to that later). Something like Formy mentioned (12 months) is much more reasonable. I think there can be a solution that while it will not please everyone, might be something both sides can accept.

I had written a big long post regarding this, but then read this article and basically sums up with much more proficiency what I have to say. Reconsidering the lifetime deferral of blood donation by men who have sex with men

Please note that this article is Canadian, so the statistics and policies differ from the USA.

TL;DR - Indefinite deferrals for MSM is ridiculous given the current state of affairs (both technological and policy-wise). Something between 1-5 years for deferral is much more reasonable.

EDIT: I am an organ donor, but I no longer donate blood because I am gay. I am O+ and did donate before being "MSM" (lol) as it were.

[NorthernChaosGod]

I've given blood quite a few times before, I don't think I'm an organ donor though. I should find out.

[Mirage]

I've heard someone say theyre not an organ donor because if one day theyre in the hospital with 70% chance of survival and theres a dying child who needs his organs, he's worried the doctors might not try as hard to save him.

I dunno. Over here, you're not even allowed to check if a person is an organ donor while he or she is still alive.

[blackmage_nuke]

Well it's written on our drivers lisences and our lisences might be checked to identify us.

[Quindiana Jones]

I dun want no faggut blood savin' mah life.

[Mirage]

Well it's written on our drivers lisences and our lisences might be checked to identify us.

Not ours.

[Ouch!]

Really? :O_O: What's wrong with Norway?

If you lived just about anywhere in western Europe in the early to mid 1990s for a period of a few years (I want to say the minimum is two?), the FDA disallows blood donation because of Mad Cow Disease. Because apparently that's been dormant in my system for over a decade.

[Old Manus]

oh to live in glorious le athiest scandinavia ~

[louby_4eva]

I started giving blood as soon as I could, I knew a few people that did it and it seemed like a great idea ^_^ It doesn't hurt and you're doing a good thing, everyone who can do it, should do it

I also want to look into platelet donations. I hear that's something people want too.

I asked about that the last time I went and it's better suited for men. You need large veins as they pump the blood out of you, remove the platelets and then pump it back in. Also, it takes hours as opposed to minutes so you need to donate more time. Pretty sure you can only do one or the other as well, so it's either platelets or blood. May be worth asking one of the nurses though

[Jinx]

I started giving blood as soon as I could, I knew a few people that did it and it seemed like a great idea ^_^ It doesn't hurt and you're doing a good thing, everyone who can do it, should do it

I also want to look into platelet donations. I hear that's something people want too.

I asked about that the last time I went and it's better suited for men. You need large veins as they pump the blood out of you, remove the platelets and then pump it back in. Also, it takes hours as opposed to minutes so you need to donate more time. Pretty sure you can only do one or the other as well, so it's either platelets or blood. May be worth asking one of the nurses though

Here in the US, they pay you for plasma/platelets.

[Madame Adequate]

Really? :O_O: What's wrong with Norway?

If you lived just about anywhere in western Europe in the early to mid 1990s for a period of a few years (I want to say the minimum is two?), the FDA disallows blood donation because of Mad Cow Disease. Because apparently that's been dormant in my system for over a decade.

In fairness you don't smurf around with CJD. When it broke here we slaughtered ten million cattle and then burned the bodies to ashes. The FDA needs to revise the policies for obvious reasons but the principle of "Holy trout we can't let this get into our medical infrastructure" is a sound one.

This is incidentally why the horsemeat scandal is such a big deal. We're supposed to be able to trace any meal back to at least the farm if not the herd or individual animal, so that if something like CJD crops up again we can get on top of it as fast as humanly possible. Horse meat can carry its own unpleasant diseases, and obviously there are many issues with halal/kosher and stuff, as well as the basic notion of being able to trust the label on what you're buying, but if people are being so fundamentally careless there are bigger risks around.

[Ouch!]

Oh, I'm aware of what a big deal it was. I lived in Indonesia for two years after Norway, and it made perfect sense that I was not allowed to donate blood for five years. I just find it a bit ridiculous that there isn't a similar time period after which I'm considered clean. So far as I'm aware, CJD does not remain dormant with no symptoms for long periods of time. Incidentally, it was only after I finally finished my five years of ineligibility from living in Indonesia that the FDA instituted the rules about living in Europe.

Also I looked up the exact requirements. When it was put in place in 2002, the policy was if you had spent six months in Europe (or three in the UK) from 1980 to 1996 you were ineligible for donation. It has since been relaxed to a cumulative five-year time period in Europe (although still only three months in the UK). Either way, I am permanently banned from ever giving blood in the United States.