Blood Brothers

Purple lined velvet capes, a fondness for formal wear and bow ties, Eye-liner, and Super slick hair - And despite all these obvious similarities between gay men and vampires - the National Blood Service in the UK have always given the homosexual community a very wide birth.

There's a campaign going on to have the blood donor regulations changed, to remove the discrimination of homosexuals and bisexuals. As it stands, in the UK, any man who's engaged in homosexual relations, or any woman who's had sex with a man who has, can not give blood. The reason being, these people are more likely to be HIV positive, which would infect others with the virus.

Italy, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Russia and France all used to have the same law, but in each of those countries, the law has been repealed.

But just because other nations think the reasons are invalid, should we believe them and follow suit? As a spokesperson from the NBS (National Blood Service) said:

“We have had these policies in place for many years in order to maximise blood safety. All our blood is tested for HIV but no test is 100 per cent. This isn’t about discrimination, our policies are constantly reviewed to ensure blood supply is maintained and kept safe.”

Is this true? It is the official policy, but that was a policy set a long time ago, when people thought AIDS was a gay disease. Most of us know better now - and because of the intense education in the gay media about HIV & AIDS, the rate of infection in the gay community has been significantly reduced, a trend which has only in recent years followed for heterosexuals as stigma of the disease has dropped too.

Let's take a quick look around the world and examine some stats...

From the US:

Women now account for 43% of all HIV infected people over the age of 15

[1]

In Korea, where AIDS is a serious problem (if it can ever said to be not one at all):

...the reasons for disease contraction were found for 3,222 of all patients. Among them, 1,377 contracted HIV through sexual intercourse with the same sex while 1,801 contracted the disease through heterosexual relations.

[2]

And in the UK:

The number of heterosexually acquired HIV infections diagnosed in the UK has risen hugely over the last 15 years. In 1999, for the first time, the rate of heterosexually acquired HIV diagnoses overtook the rate of diagnoses in men who have sex with men. During 2005, there were 3,839 reports of heterosexually acquired HIV, and a total of 32,361 had been reported by the end of June 2006. Many of the new diagnoses are in people who probably acquired HIV in other countries. However, the number of infections probably acquired from heterosexual sex within the UK has soared from 180 in 1998 to 521 in 2005.

[3]

Surprised about that last one? The disease is indiscriminate. Anyone can and do carry it, there are many ways to contract it, including just about every form of sexual intimacy.
Many cases of HIV go undiagnosed for a long time, as the disease may not present symptoms and heterosexual men are unlikely to have themselves tested for it without very obvious signs they have it.

To be honest - I don't care much about blood donor laws. I'm not scared of needles but I'm not there greatest fan and if you say I can't give blood selflessly then well... of all the prejudices, I think I'll be ok with that one if you really have to. But it's not about any of that. It comes down to the same thing for me as for the NBS Spokesperson there. It's about HIV, and this law serves to reinforce the inaccurate and dangerous views that 'homosexuality is the cause of AIDS - if you're not gay, you never need worry; if you are, serves you right'. That kind of opinion encourages the persecution of the suffering, and to be blunt, it kills people.

If the law really was made as a protective measure for this very issue, and gay men have vastly reduced their infections by education and responsibility while heterosexuals have not... the law should now flip shouldn't it? Seriously... why are straight men allowed to give blood? In the US - why allow women to give blood? In Korea, should they allow any men to donate? I think I heard a while ago the rate of heterosexual infections had declined also, but even now, the truth is there isn’t much of a difference in percentage, and while the situation was reversed, the lack of change in the law showed that the law was little based on safety. These days, all blood is screened for any problems, and while no test is 100% accurate, they’re not far off, and we run the risk whoevers' blood it is. My blood, specifically, has a much less chance of having any infections than the vast majority of donors - so where's the sense?

There are more quantifiable differences on HIV infection rates between rich and poor, geographical areas, age, sex, and social interests – none of these factors are worried about when taking blood donations because it will all be screened anyway – but if HIV was the concern despite testing, there’s no excuse for ignoring these issues.

In fact, if we're targeting sexual activity in the screening process... and that's not an unreasonable thing to do, there is only one line of questioning we really need, and it's not sexuality. The questions need to be aimed at asking what kind of sex life this person has – is it careful or not? With whom do they have sex? As for the ban on gay men giving blood? It does a lot more harm than good, if any good at all.

We've learnt a lot more about HIV, so let’s bring the laws into the right century, and take effective measures to prevent it's spread. While we're at it, it wouldn't hurt if we all individually learnt a little more about HIV and AIDS, especially at this time as we fast approach World AIDS day. It's time to lift the prejudice of HIV.

To sign the petition on the blood ban, go to: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bloodban/

To learn more about AIDS and World AIDS day, I'll pass you on to: http://www.worldaidsday.org/
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Phil

[1] New York Times, 11/98
[2] The Korea Times: Based on data collected by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC)
[3] Avert: UK Summary