Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

danshapiro.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 101 posts

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#41

Post by StavrosK »

jacoblyles wrote: post #40
tomjen3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same shit for blood donations in Denmark. They got pretty unpopular when they asked for more donors because they feared a shortage but then turned away the gay men. And no, it is not for health issues because they don't turn away gay women. Of course you could register if you want to and then if called upon show up eagerly with your partner for moral support. Then flat out ask if they are going to kill thei…

In the United States, gay men[1] account for 49% of HIV positive people according to the CDC. Gay women do not account for at least 2% of the HIV positive population and so are excluded from the most recent CDC fact sheet[2]. So, gay men and women may be treated very differently by health officials with some valid reason. [1]The CDC actually tracks the objective category "men who have sex with men", and not the fuzzy…

Half the people with HIV might be gay, but half the gay people don't have HIV. The statistic you quoted is not the one we need to ascertain whether the reason for turning them down is valid or not.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#42

Post by jacoblyles »

StavrosK wrote: post #41
jacoblyles wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States, gay men[1] account for 49% of HIV positive people according to the CDC. Gay women do not account for at least 2% of the HIV positive population and so are excluded from the most recent CDC fact sheet[2]. So, gay men and women may be treated very differently by health officials with some valid reason. [1]The CDC actually tracks the objective category "men who have sex with men", and not the fuzzy…

Half the people with HIV might be gay, but half the gay people don't have HIV. The statistic you quoted is not the one we need to ascertain whether the reason for turning them down is valid or not.

That's true. I can't say whether or not the health bureaus' policies are justified as I am not an expert. But I can guess that it is not unreasonable that they would treat gay males and gay females differently.

There is probably some testing regime that could be implemented that would allow tissue and serum donation programs to be blind to sexual behavior.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#43

Post by hellweaver666 »

sequence7 wrote: post #36
danshapiro wrote: post #5

Canada http://www.onematch.ca/ http://www.blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.n... The first site is supposed to be more current, but isn't rendering properly for me on Firefox. On the second site, Scroll to the bottom for the button to start the process. UK http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/qa/index.asp#howcan It appears that you opt-in when you donate blood. I don't see mention of an at-home swab progr…

UK at home swab program: http://www.anthonynolan.org/What-you-can-do/save-a-life/Onli...

I signed up with Anthony Nolan earlier this year and the registration procedure is really easy, fill in a form, spit in a tube, post it back (free of charge). Done.

Takes like five minutes of your life. Could save someone else's.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#44

Post by corroded »

http://marrow.org/Join/Join_in_Person/International_Donor_Ce...

I'm quite surprised that there are no donor centers in other countries. Are there? Most of these(or all) are first world countries - it scares me to think the chances of people in third world countries if even the ones listed here have a hard time looking for donors.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#45

Post by radu_floricica »

tomjen3 wrote: post #22
heimidal wrote: post #17

This inspired me to register, but once again I was thwarted by the US' arcane rule banning gay men from donating. The rule applies despite the fact that I've been monogamous for ages and am tested for everything under the sun twice a year. A college frat boy who has had unprotected sex with a different girl every week for the past semester can give blood/marrow, but monogamous, healthy gay men can't. I don't get it.

It is the same shit for blood donations in Denmark. They got pretty unpopular when they asked for more donors because they feared a shortage but then turned away the gay men. And no, it is not for health issues because they don't turn away gay women. Of course you could register if you want to and then if called upon show up eagerly with your partner for moral support. Then flat out ask if they are going to kill thei…

I've seen the math in another discussion in another forum, and it's actually sensible to turn away gay people. From their point of view the goal is to get as many blood donations as possible, while minimizing the risk of disease. They couldn't give a f*ck about anything else.

Couldn't find all the numbers I was looking for, but it turns out 61% of infections in US are through male-to-male sexual contact. This probably translates into over 60% of HIV carriers being male and gay.

Now, if I was a guy in a position to decide things, and I could reduce by more then half the risk of HIV in transfused blood by reducing the donation pool by 7-10%... I'd do it in a heartbeat.

If you have some time you could try to calculate how many more people would get HIV if gay people would donate blood. You could subtract the people who wouldn't die because of the increase blood supply. But the result would still be positive.

The point of the whole blood donation thing is not to be politically correct, but to solve a problem. Making it politically correct, in this particular case, would mean solving the problem worse, possibly significantly worse then if we just let them do their jobs.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#46

Post by icebraining »

radu_floricica wrote: post #45
tomjen3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same shit for blood donations in Denmark. They got pretty unpopular when they asked for more donors because they feared a shortage but then turned away the gay men. And no, it is not for health issues because they don't turn away gay women. Of course you could register if you want to and then if called upon show up eagerly with your partner for moral support. Then flat out ask if they are going to kill thei…

I've seen the math in another discussion in another forum, and it's actually sensible to turn away gay people. From their point of view the goal is to get as many blood donations as possible, while minimizing the risk of disease. They couldn't give a f*ck about anything else. Couldn't find all the numbers I was looking for, but it turns out 61% of infections in US are through male-to-male sexual contact. This probabl…

Yes, but if one has recent test results showing that he's not infected, blindly turning him down anyway makes no sense.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#47

Post by srl »

radu_floricica wrote: post #45
tomjen3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same shit for blood donations in Denmark. They got pretty unpopular when they asked for more donors because they feared a shortage but then turned away the gay men. And no, it is not for health issues because they don't turn away gay women. Of course you could register if you want to and then if called upon show up eagerly with your partner for moral support. Then flat out ask if they are going to kill thei…

I've seen the math in another discussion in another forum, and it's actually sensible to turn away gay people. From their point of view the goal is to get as many blood donations as possible, while minimizing the risk of disease. They couldn't give a f*ck about anything else. Couldn't find all the numbers I was looking for, but it turns out 61% of infections in US are through male-to-male sexual contact. This probabl…

Upvoted, even though you're wrong.

You seem to be saying, in essence: allowing gays to donate doubles the number of instances of transfusing HIV while only increasing the number of lives saved by 7-10% (or 20%, or 2% - it doesn't matter). But that's the wrong way to look at it. Even if 10% of all transfusions from gays resulted in an additional HIV infection (thanks to testing etc., I'd guess it'd be well below 1%), that still means that, for any given transfusion candidate, you have a 90% possibility of saving their life without transfusing HIV.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#48

Post by a_m0d »

danshapiro wrote: post #5

Canada http://www.onematch.ca/ http://www.blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.n... The first site is supposed to be more current, but isn't rendering properly for me on Firefox. On the second site, Scroll to the bottom for the button to start the process. UK http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/qa/index.asp#howcan It appears that you opt-in when you donate blood. I don't see mention of an at-home swab progr…

Australia - http://www.abmdr.org.au/dynamic_menus.php?id=1&subid=1&#...

Or sign up at the Red Cross centre when you're in there to donate blood - they'll take an extra blood sample for testing purposes.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#49

Post by a_m0d »

srl wrote: post #47
radu_floricica wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen the math in another discussion in another forum, and it's actually sensible to turn away gay people. From their point of view the goal is to get as many blood donations as possible, while minimizing the risk of disease. They couldn't give a f*ck about anything else. Couldn't find all the numbers I was looking for, but it turns out 61% of infections in US are through male-to-male sexual contact. This probabl…

Upvoted, even though you're wrong. You seem to be saying, in essence: allowing gays to donate doubles the number of instances of transfusing HIV while only increasing the number of lives saved by 7-10% (or 20%, or 2% - it doesn't matter). But that's the wrong way to look at it. Even if 10% of all transfusions from gays resulted in an additional HIV infection (thanks to testing etc., I'd guess it'd be well below 1%),…

The problem is that the percentages are higher than that. The biggest problem is that testing won't always pick up HIV and AIDS, because these diseases can lie "dormant" for quite a while, but yet they are still in the blood (undetectable) and will cause infections somewhere down the line.

Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't

#50

Post by Egregore »

danshapiro wrote: post #13
timr wrote: post #7

"At the time, the only way to donate marrow was to basically have someone drill holes in your bones and drain your skeleton, which kind of terrified me. Nowadays, of course, most donations require nothing more than sitting still for a few hours with an IV watching television." That actually isn't really true. Marrow donations still require anesthesia and a surgical procedure. In the interest of providing full informa…

From your second link: PBSC donation is a non-surgical procedure done in an outpatient clinic. PBSC donors receive daily injections of a drug called filgrastim for five days, to increase the number of blood-forming cells in the bloodstream. Then, through a process called apheresis, a donor's blood is removed through a needle in one arm and passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming cells. The remai…

Is it safe from hygienic point of view? What are the chances of catching a disease from previous donor during this procedure?
Post reply on HN