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Canadian Homosexuals Barred from Organ Donations as High Medical Risk

By Hilary White

OTTAWA, January 9, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Sexually active homosexual men are barred from organ donation according to Health Canada rules, because of the known associations of homosexual activity with a host of dangerous diseases. The ban also includes injection drug users.

The CBC reports that many organ donor groups in the country were not aware of the rules which came into effect in December. The rule applies to any homosexual man who has been sexually active within five years.

Peter Nickerson, director of Transplant Manitoba, told CBC News that "sexual orientation and activity" would be among the list of questions asked of potential donors.

Egale Canada, the homosexual political lobby organisation, is calling on federal Health Minister Tony Clement to suspend the new policy. Egale wants a panel to be appointed to review organ donor rules.

Helen Kennedy, Egale's executive director objected, saying, "Health Canada should be making sure the regulations stop unsafe organ transplants and not create a situation where healthy viable gay organs will be thrown away."

It has been frequently documented, however, that active homosexuals tend to have considerably higher rates of serious disease than the general population. HIV/AIDS still tops the list, but the Centres for Disease Control have noted recently a sharp rise in the rates of syphilis and numerous sexually transmitted diseases among homosexual men.

Anal sex acts are highly likely to transmit infections, many of which can have long-term negative effects on organ tissues.

The list of diseases frequency associated with male homosexual practitioners includes anal cancer, human papilloma virus, gonorrhea, viral hepatitis that can damage the liver, and syphilis. In addition, active homosexuals have elevated rates of drug and alcohol abuse.

In only one other case have Canada's public health officials acknowledged the medical realities of homosexual activity to override their general state of cooperation with the homosexual activist community. In 2006 the Quebec blood donor authority, Hema Quebec, announced that despite politically motivated pressure, it would not reconsider its medically-based policy of a lifetime ban on donations from men who have had sex with another man since 1977.

The announcement resulted in a storm of protest not only from homosexual activists, who claimed that they were being unfairly discriminated against, but from social authorities. Commission scolaire de Montreal threatened in 2004 to halt all blood drives in its schools unless Hema-Quebec agreed to drop references to homosexuality in its questionnaire.

Homosexual protesters at McGill University in 2006 shut down a campus blood donor clinic that was refusing donations from active homosexuals. Workers with the Quebec blood agency found an anonymous note posted in men's bathrooms encouraging homosexual donors to lie about their sexual disposition on their blood donor questionnaire.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Canada's Last Taboo: Gay Blood Donation
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06032101.html

McGill University Homosexual Activists Shut Down Blood Clinic
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06020108.html

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