Petition To Repeal The Ban Of Organ Donations By Sexually Active Gay Men

This may have been posted here already. I don't know. I just know that it pisses me off, and it needs to have attention drawn to it.

Here's something I copied from a Facebook (yes... Facebook ) group about the ban:


"In December new rules took effect banning sexually active gay men from becoming organ donors. This was done so [quietly] that Canada's main organ transplant agencies were unaware of it until this week. We need to take a stand against these measures that continue to classify ALL gay men as "participating in high risk activities", grouping us with injection drug users.

Statement from Health Canada to the CBC: "Men who have had sex with another man within the preceding five years are excluded from being organ donors. Similarly, people who have evidence of IV drug abuse or having had sex for money are excluded from donating organs."


Reuters article: Health Canada insisted gay men were not being singled out. "A gay man who had practiced abstinence for the five years prior (to making an organ donation) would be acceptable," said the spokeswoman.


Liberal Health Critic Robert Thibault calls for an end to the ban:
Story

I have drafted a petition to the minister of Health, Tony Clement, which can be downloaded by following the website link for this group. Website


On Saturday January 12 I started an online version of the petition that you can sign at the link below.

Petition


Tony Clement
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Mail may be sent postage-free to any Member of Parliament at this address.

Telephone: (613) 944-7740
Fax: (613) 992-5092
E-Mail:ClemeT@parl.gc.ca

Please show your support and invite your friends to join.

Thanks
Lucas"


**If this post is not appropriate, I apologize and feel free to remove it.**

Wow, I figured we were past the whole "gay people transmit diseases" era.

You're gonna catch the GRIDS with that attitude. . .

Your link to the story is invalid... please fix...

Wow. I need sleep. All URLs are fixed. Sorry.

In the US you can donate blood, if you've had a any type of gay sex (oral included) since 1970 or some shit. It's really random the shit they put on those lists, but obviously this type of prohibition is a reflection of outdated societal attitudes, and needs to be adjusted.

...it would make so much more sense to just require up-to-date tests for the pathogens they're worried about before donating blood or organs.

Three months is typical for HIV to show up in test; six months is very rare. A five-year ban seems a little excessive.

Its excessive to clump gay men into a group with junkies and hookers simply because they have sex with each other.

Yes, gay men still have a slight lead with regards to being tested positive for HIV. However, with the red alerts on AIDS and anal sex for the past two decades, gay men are also the group in the lead for routinely getting themselves tested.

Read this article and tell me why all sexually active people shouldn't be met wth suspicion. I highly doubt the wives and children of these men would have said that they were engaging in high risk behaviour, and had they not been caught I also doubt they'd of spoke up themselves.

"So you wish to be an organ donor, Father? Well, its routine to ask... are you at all experimenting with injection drugs?"
"Why no, son. However, I do engage in gay sex on the weekends, and every second Tuesday."

Give me a break. Let's also ban organs from women below the poverty line, as they're more likely to dabble in prostitution than any other group of organ donors.

They ban prostitution

Did it ever occur to you that these qualifications might be determined by actuarial means, and not some misguided political process?

From the CDC.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#hivaidsexposure

In other words, a little over half of all cases. Interestingly, if you scroll up a little bit to show cases by race and ethnicity, you'll see that blacks account for a little over half of all cases, too.

I think if anyone suggested that blacks be barred from blood and organ donation it would be rightly decried as racist.

There is no question that some element of, as frshprncebelair phrases it, "actuarial means" goes into the formulation of these policies. But this

is far too strong a denial. A component of prejudice is pretty obvious.

I do see that they are writing about estimated numbers in 33 states for 2005.
But is there some explanation for why there is a nearly 10 thousand case disparity in the count between the listing by race and the list by transmission category ?

Probably because they are just estimated statistics. I'm not a big fan of statistics in the first place, just because I find them so inaccurate, but I also find they can be useful as long as someone doesn't consider them absolute.

BTW I simply posted what I thought was the best link with the most relevant information I am in no way shape or form weighing in on this.

I just want to be absolutely clear on that.

I think the prohibition may still be actuarial driven. Please see HIV/AIDS among Men Who Have Sex with Men from the CDC. Please note the following

It seems that among younger gay men those who did not see the loss of a generation to AIDS. Who now have access to drugs that have changed AIDS from a death sentence to chronic but manageable heath condition have shifted away from the behavior patterns, condoms always except in LTR, that had helped to stem the spread of AIDS. This may be why the prohibition was put in place.

I still don't really see why one would go with a five year prohibition when the HIV would show up much sooner than that. I mean, jeez. Five years is kind of a long time to go without sex just to be a donor.

+1