Can we discuss this

Your values?!?!? Do you even read what you write?? If you had said your career, or your family, or even your social status.. but values? Values are internal and personal. So it seems to me keeping this a secret is so that the public perception of your values stays in tact, not your values themselves. Being here seems to already conflict with your values, whatever they are..

You make some good points. I think based on the numbers I looked at on the CDC website that there must be a very heavy cross-over of HIV cases of men have sex with men and blacks. According to these facts from the CDC as of 2006 61% of new infections of HIV were gay males. this number included black males. 23% were heterosexual blacks non intravenous drug users that number rises to 30% if you include drug users. I’m not sure how you arrived at 46% of blacks unless you included gay black males which would have to nullify your numbers somewhat. Here is the link I’m using to arrive at my stats. I would appreciate further clarification on this.

“And thunder, trim what you want dude.”

Cool. Access reduced to Newbie’s, Hanger’s and Main. Tired of babysitting.

Being black is higher risk in part because that population has a higher percentage of intravenous drug users and people who have sex with them. There are other factors wrapped up in this, only some of which might be biological and related to a genetic immunological disadvantage or predisposition. There’s the higher incarceration rate (which is a vector for both gay sex and intravenous drug use) as well as sexual behaviors such as promiscuity, use of condoms, and interaction with the sex industry (either as patron or provider).

Race is indeed a touchy subject, but we can’t ignore trends in public health simply because they have a racial factor.

However, if you want to serve the public, you have to protect the public. I think the frailty and vulnerability of the public blood supply, due to political “squeamishness”, should be a compelling argument for private blood banks, that can impose all the exclusionary and “discriminatory” donation criteria that are deemed necessary in order to maintain a safe inventory of materials. Let a rational approach prevail. The last thing that should be a factor in public health is the possibility that someone might get their feelings hurt. Nobody who is thinking rationally about the issue of blood safety gives a shit who feels excluded ; they just want safe blood. That pretty much sums it up.

That being said, HIV is largely still a gay disease, and hence there is a valid reason for excluding MSM from blood donations. Why introduce an element of unnecessary risk, particularly when the percentage of the potential blood donor pool that is MSM is so small in the first place? If only 5-7% of the population is MSM, then it isn’t as though eliminating this portion is going to have a significantly detrimental impact on the quantity of blood available for donation.

Gay and black aren’t mutually exclusive. The numbers came from here mostly.

There is overlap. Most of the MSM infections were black, and most of the black infections were MSM.

Bummer. I was looking forward to hearing him do mental back-flips explaining how his values aren’t compromised as long as nobody is aware that they are. ;-)

Well if Thunder hadn’t already banned him you could have asked him to clarify the comment rather than jumping to a conclusion. From reading the post the implication was clear to me that it was his reputation, professionally, not personal “values” that were of concern. I think that he simply used an inaccurate word. Between you and Marinera, this thread has already had an overdose of antagonistic/ad hominem content. I have to say that I’m disappointed - I expected better from all of you.

You looking to join him Fantom? He has the same problem you have, a bad case of the shit stirrer condition.

No. I just sent you a PM though.

Try sending it again, it didn’t make it.

I now realize that what bothered me about your previous posting is the insinuation (correct me if I’m drawing the wrong conclusion) that you are nearly as likely to get tainted blood from a black person as you would a gay person. Because gays are not allowed to donate wouldn’t that exclude gay black men? When you strip out gay black men that number drops to 19% vs. 53% or nearly three times less likely. When I looked at the total number of blood units donated in 2006 which is the year of the study you referenced there were 16,000,000 units donated in the US. Of the total new cases of HIV infection which were 54,230 10,630 of those cases were heterosexual non I.V drug using black males and females. Assuming that black people donate blood at the same rate as they are a percentage of the population (12%) that would mean that black people donated a total of 1,920,000 units of blood that would come to 0.55% chance of tainted blood. I agree with you that heterosexual blacks have a disproportionately high rate of HIV infection but it does not approach the rate of men that have sex with men.

Being black means you’re more likely to be an intravenous drug user, have sex with one, be in prison, have gay sex, be promiscuous, not use condoms, and have sex with or be a hooker?

Some of that may be true, most of it probably isn’t. If you watch the news, a lot of that behavior applies to rich, white congressmen, so I don’t think that stuff is exactly rare among whites.

HIV is largely a gay disease - by 3%. Like I said before, 53% of new infections are from gay sex, 31% are from heterosexual sex, and 12% are from drug use. If it makes sense to screen for IV drug use, it makes sense to screen for unsafe heterosexual sex. Why do we screen for homosexuals and druggies but not for straight sex? "Deviant" behaviors are seen as more dangerous, despite what the numbers show. I’m all for protecting public health. It shouldn’t be a popularity contest, though.

5-7% of the population are MSM? Where does that come from? The commonly accepted number is 10%. Lets say its actually 5%. But 10% of men who identify as straight also have sex with men. 10% of 95% is another 9.5%, so nearly 15% of men, gay, straight, or whatever, have sex with men. (http://www.psyc hologytoday.com … e-sex-other-men ) Eliminating 15% of the population for being MSM eliminates 53% of new HIV infections, eliminating 12% for being black would eliminate 46% of new infections.

Society is comfortable thinking HIV is a gay disease, because then it doesn’t affect them. It isn’t especially a gay disease. It used to be, but that outdated idea is the reason its spreading though straight communities so easily. Remember when virtually all victims of AIDS were gay? Now half are.

Public health officials have to decide what the standard of safety is for blood donation. I don’t think the standards are actually based on safety though, I think it has more to do with the public’s level of comfort.

I don’t see anything I said as an insinuation, just a statement of fact. In fact, you are about as likely to get tainted blood from a black donor as a gay one. You treat gay black donors as gay and not black, when they are both.

I’m looking at the CDC numbers. Their numbers on HIV infections by MSM as a part of the whole population (including all races), and their numbers on HIV infections among blacks (including all sexual orientations.) Based on those numbers, there isn’t a large difference in new HIV infection between those two groups.

The CDC is concerned with who needs HIV education the most. For them, gays and blacks are the two groups they are most concerned with. If they could reduce new infections in both groups, the epidemic could be reduced greatly. Of course there is overlap. The majority of new gay infections were black, and the majority of new black infections were gay. If you want to get your message to those most at risk, and most likely to spread infections, you would want to target both groups in general.

The Red Cross uses its own criteria to determine eligibility to donate blood. If they were basing their numbers on CDC figures, they would probably change their screening questions. Over a third of new infections come from heterosexual contact, which they aren’t worried about. It’s not that heterosexual contact is safe, its that society doesn’t see it as a problem, so they don’t raise it as an issue.

I’m not saying sexual behavior can’t be used to exclude people from donating. Nor should race be used to exclude people from donating. Public safety should be the criteria, and I’m not convinced it is.

I am not allowed to give blood in Australia because I lived in the UK for a short period during the 80’s.
And I have a lot of good clean healthy blood to give…

Discrimination!

You were the one that said that gay donors are prohibited from donating which means that they are for the purposes of donation gay first and then black. The gay is what prevents them from donating not the black therefore for the purposes of donating it is irrelevant that they are black. Repeating that you are as likely to get tainted blood from a black as from a gay does not make it true when the numbers say otherwise. Education is another issue and I don’t disagree with you on this point.