Wednesday May 26, 2010
Researchers Argue Homosexuals Should be Allowed to Give Blood
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
OTTAWA, May 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Two Canadian researchers have published an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) saying that the federal ban on homosexual men donating blood is “outdated and discriminatory.”
Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill University AIDS Centre at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital, and Dr. Norbert Gilmore argue in their article that it’s time for the lifetime ban to be lifted. They say that the test to detect HIV in blood is much improved since the 1980s when the ban was first introduced, and that the ban was “hypocritical” because there are very few restrictions on heterosexual donors who may be sexually promiscuous.
“The science has advanced by hundreds of miles. Yet our policies are still in a time warp. Here we are 27 years later, still stuck with policies that are antiquated. And in our view these are policies that are not only discriminatory in regard to gay men but they are also policies that do not serve the Canadian blood system well because they result in far fewer blood donations,” said Dr. Wainberg.
However, Ron Vezina, director of media relations at Canadian Blood Services, which tests all donated blood for HIV and other disease-causing organisms, said in media reports there would be no benefit to the blood supply by allowing homosexual men, still among the highest risk groups for HIV and other STD infections in Canada, to donate blood.
He added that many blood recipients don’t want to see a change in policy that eliminates high risk groups from the pool of potential donors.
“As far as we’re concerned, there’s no evidence that’s been introduced that suggests a change in policy wouldn’t introduce incremental risk. We start off with the least risky donors and then we put them through the other processes for safety screening,” Mr. Vezina said.
To Wainberg and Gilmore’s argument that allowing homosexual men to donate would help alleviate blood shortages, Vezina said, “There hasn’t been a blood shortage in Canada in recent history.”
From a purely medical viewpoint, the health risks of the homosexual lifestyle have been meticulously documented.
While the Public Health Agency of Canada says that homosexual men as a group have the highest rate of new HIV infections, 44% in 2008, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that in the United States AIDS is fifty times more prevalent among men who have sex with men (‘MSM’) than in the rest of the population.
Homosexualists have actively suppressed such statistics in the past and focused on portraying HIV/AIDS as a disease affecting the whole population in an equal fashion, but the statistics’ increasing indisputability has forced their hand.
In fact, the statistics on HIV/AIDS led one group, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, to state in 2006 that HIV/AIDS is a “gay disease,” in a billboard ad campaign geared to reducing rates of HIV infection.
In 2007, the FDA renewed its 1983 policy that homosexual men cannot donate blood, due to the high-risk nature of living an active homosexual lifestyle.
According to the FDA, the ban is in place because, “A history of male-to-male sex is associated with an increased risk for the presence of and transmission of certain infectious diseases, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.”
Studies have also linked the homosexual lifestyle to increased risk of depression, suicide and mental illness, and a higher risk of lung, liver and colorectal cancer.
A 2005 study, which analyzed tens of thousands of gay obituaries and compared them with AIDS deaths data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has shown that the life expectancy for homosexuals is about twenty years shorter than that of the general public. The study, entitled “Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS,” was published in Psychological Reports (2005;96:693-697)
Dr. Paul Cameron, the President of the Family Research Institute and the scientist who headed the study, told LifeSiteNews at the time that he was not at all surprised by the findings, and hoped that the sobering results of the study would finally cause a “reexamination,” saying that “our society needs to reassess what it’s doing with those who engage in homosexuality.”
To contact the Canadian blood collection agency with your concern:
Canadian Blood Services
1800 Alta Vista Drive,
Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 4J5
Phone: (613) 739-2300
Fax: (613) 731-1411
Email: [email protected]
To contact your Member of Parliament with your concern click here.
See related LSN articles:
AIDS Rate 50 Times Higher in Homosexual Men: Center for Disease Control
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09082609.html
“Gay” Sex Kills
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08042101.html
Yet Another Study Confirms Gay Life Expectancy 20 Years Shorter
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05060606.html
FDA: Gay Men Still Banned from Donating Blood Over Documented Risk Concerns
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/may/07052505.html