vatine: Generated with some CL code and a hand-designed blackletter font (Default)
posted by [personal profile] vatine at 08:10pm on 24/11/2006
Having, once in the distant past, worked in the healthcare and having had the opportunity to discuss these things with the men working in a (possibly the, at the time, premier) HIV ward in Sweden, the reason they ban men having (or in given past timeframe, had) sex with men from donating blood ISN'T because of HIV (specifically). It's to stop the NEXT blood-borne disease to get a solid foot-hold.

We have, twice, been bitten by this and spread it around rather wildly before we even knew the disease existed. First it was Hepatitis Non-A Non-B (now known as Hepatitis C), prevalent in needle-sharers and men having (unprotected) sex with men (more prevalent amon needle-sharers, mind you; but they're not allowed to give blood either) and the second was HIV. Essentially anything taht is blood-borne is more than capable of using shared needles or semen injected anally as a vector (there's trace blood in semen, there's almost always microtears during anal intercourse). Men having unprotected oral sex or men using sufficiently good condoms aren't at risk.

That the current blood-tests for what-have-you are non-reliable is NOTHING compared to the one we don't know about. From it starting to spread to "we know what it is, we have an N% chance of detecting it in screening tests" is, well, about 2-3 years. If it, as is not uncommon, there is a long incubation time, that's quite a few people at risk.

Obviously, a balance between "possible lives saved by blood collected" and "possible lives at risk from chronic diseases spread through blood collected" must be weighed. I honestly don't know that "no men having sex with men allowed" is on the RIGHT side of the paranoia barrier, but I'd say that it is close to that barrier, no matter what side it is.

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