This also implies that the quantity of blood you gain by this extensive questioning is rather small.
The figure I've seen quoted is about 2%.
It's also worth noting that there are about 50 reasons why people are asked not to donate blood, and in total they cover about 40% of the adult population. Various other restrictions are also designed to block transmissible diseases, and exclude people based on where they've lived or what they've done. These are not considered controversial.
The other large source of HIV infections amongst Britons (meaning British residents and therefore potential blood donors in this case) is infection in sub-Saharan Africa. This is also covered by a restriction, whether it involved sex between two men or not.
The standard paper to cite on this topic is this one by Kate Soldan and Katy Sinka, which estimates a rise from 0.45 to 0.75 donations a year slipping through into the blood supply (a 60% rise) if the MSM criterion were relaxed to only cover sex within the last year, or a 500% rise if it were dropped altogether. This is a large relative change to a small absolute risk, but I don't see how it's possible to meaningfully discuss matters without (as is often the case) making any reference at all to the fact that the risk exists.
This paper (also one of Soldan's - busy woman, clearly) is also interesting. It doesn't directly address the MSM issue, but is available in full rather than just as an abstract, and shows the figures and what sort of factors are taken into account.
Feel free to paste bits of this into public view if you think it'd be more useful than just unscreening it.
Not quite: sex tourists tend to be white. However, they are definitely not all male: West Africa (Gambia in particular) is a popular destination for unaccompanied middle-aged women.
They get uptight about this one, perhaps, because it is assumed that the HIV test is wholly reliable, with possibly the only variable being the window of infection versus test. I would also question whether the other restrictions are as widely known as this one.
Besides, if white, searching under the street lights is easy. Statistics are always useful.
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The figure I've seen quoted is about 2%.
It's also worth noting that there are about 50 reasons why people are asked not to donate blood, and in total they cover about 40% of the adult population. Various other restrictions are also designed to block transmissible diseases, and exclude people based on where they've lived or what they've done. These are not considered controversial.
The other large source of HIV infections amongst Britons (meaning British residents and therefore potential blood donors in this case) is infection in sub-Saharan Africa. This is also covered by a restriction, whether it involved sex between two men or not.
The standard paper to cite on this topic is this one by Kate Soldan and Katy Sinka, which estimates a rise from 0.45 to 0.75 donations a year slipping through into the blood supply (a 60% rise) if the MSM criterion were relaxed to only cover sex within the last year, or a 500% rise if it were dropped altogether. This is a large relative change to a small absolute risk, but I don't see how it's possible to meaningfully discuss matters without (as is often the case) making any reference at all to the fact that the risk exists.
This paper (also one of Soldan's - busy woman, clearly) is also interesting. It doesn't directly address the MSM issue, but is available in full rather than just as an abstract, and shows the figures and what sort of factors are taken into account.
Feel free to paste bits of this into public view if you think it'd be more useful than just unscreening it.
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I note that no-one gets uptight about the Africa restriction being racist, even though I imagine it affects black people far more than others.
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Besides, if white, searching under the street lights is easy. Statistics are always useful.
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