Once a friend of mine suffered an accident and needed a transfusion. The donor was gay whose blood was perfectly "clean" and saved my friend's life.

This idea that only gay people are HIV-carriers is stupid.

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and no blood from:
you were born in or lived in (for more than one year) Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria since 1977

Damn! Makes me wonder what has been happening in those African nations that it doesn't matter if you had sex there. but if you were just born or lived there.
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What do I think? shit i dont know.. Red Cross is trying to cover its ass. Aids antibody test is usually taken every six months just to make sure.
Aids PCR test is way to expensive to do on a per person basis.

so is it right to say no blood from gays and a whole mess of African peoples?
I dont know... =(

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I agree that it's a rather sterotypical rule and well.. stupid.. and I don't understand why the Red Cross doesn't take the blood and have it tested later in one of those 6 months batch periods. (or does blood 'go bad' and expire? i'm not sure.) I'm sure they would get more sample of clean blood than unclean samples that way.

Oh well.

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plus with aids.. the virus can stay dormant.
but it can stay dormant in straight peoples too.
i guess that's why they also list anyone who's had sex with a gay man, a drug user or one of those Africans' is also ineligable.

Will if you went to the RedCross and they told you we don't accept blood from Guys name Will. It's too high risk for us.

How do you feel? Do you feel, "Oh okay I understand."
or
"What? I'm clean."

i guess joe if you went with your recent Aids test result showing negative maybe they'll take your blood?

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I'm pretty sure that there is no way the Red Cross would take my blood, unless I lied to them (which I refuse to do).

It sure would be cool, though, if I donated some blood, and somehow it ended up in someone like Jerry Falwell! Could you image 100% homo blood pumpin' through his veins??

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I know that some of the earlier AIDS tests, like the Elisa, work mainly by detecting the ACTION of the virus, not its presence.

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Luckily I believe they have all they can handle for now.....

Not that this has anything to do with the topic but I was down in the city today....its extremely sad and discomforting seeing all the memorials all over, flyers posted around, etc. I'm still really bothered by the whole situation.......so if we can't give blood find another means to show or give support!!!!!

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I just think it's probably a bit silly of them to not take blood from guys who've had sex with a man after 1977 because of the slight chance that they will have aids or some other viral infection or illness that can be transmitted by blood.

I think they would have a better chance of getting a clean sample of blood if they took blood from people who offered and then tested them later and chucked out the samples they can't use. If they have to check all the blood donated anyway then I don't see why they can't do what i've suggested.

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Here's the complete list of "elegibility" factors;
Click here

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I also have to say that I can't be too supportive of much the Red Cross does. They have some of the highest overhead of any charity, so that means less of the money donated goes to where you were planning it to. My wife's cousin, whom I have a lot of trust and respect for, works in a blood lab in one of the hospitals that's highly regarded throughout the world. He told me quite a while ago that he really wouldn't want blood form the Red Cross because they don't take many of the precautions they should. They apparently think they're above some things because they're the Red Cross. After hearing and seeing what the Salvation Army did in Fargo when it flooded a few years ago, and the Red Cross was barely seen, I just can't bring myself to give much of anything to them. There are too many other charities out there that actually do things.

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I'm not sure what your wife's cousin is referring to, as
there are very strict procedures everyone must follow, and
really no shortcuts or anything of the kind are allowed.
But, it sounds like a case of blood lab bickering and snobbery, which went on where I worked as well. lol!

Blood does outdate in 30 days, although this is extremely rare, as blood is ALWAYS in short supply, even in the best of times. People would be quite frightened to hear just how low the supply is normally. So, don't think just because your blood might not go directly to NYC, it's not needed.
When there is a regional emergency, all blood that can be spared is shipped, leaving the local supply devastated.

Another point about gay donations is there were more than a few who would use a blood donation as a kind of poor man's aids test. This was not done thinking they would put anyone in danger, but still, until everything is known about the virus, their policy has had to be this way. One blood donation gets separated into many different components as well, thus the potential for harming many people is multiplied.
As for what's going on in Africa, I don't know, but it seems there were always parts of the world they would be watching for some kind of disease, this too had NOTHING to do with any kind of discrimination. As we all know - gay or straight, black or white, our blood is the same. (except for the types O, A, B & AB, then positive & negative subtypes in each of those, but THAT'S IT!) lol

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