FDA! No gay sperm donations allowed.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Even Mr. Fun thinks Adam Smith is right with the numbers, and HE'S ON YOUR SIDE!

Since when was Mr. Fun's opinion a barameter for correctness? Doesn't it work the other way?

And he's not on my side, his position is ridiculous as most social-science positions are. The issue is with facts and statistical risk, not with being PC like he wants. His position and opinion is worthless for this debate.

There is no one here that has come to your defense, while many who were outraged have said "Adam Smith makes a good case" (monkspider) or something similar. That ought to tell you something.

You're seriously using monkspider and Mr. Fun as "proof' that the vacuous statements Adam Smith is making are correct?

Why don't you think for yourself for a bit.

[Imran Siddiqui]

When people who are on your side, agree with your opponent, while no one is agreeing with you (except for the final what is to be done) that is a sign of PWNage. The fact of the matter is that you haven't convinced anyone, but AS has most definetly.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
When people who are on your side, agree with your opponent, while no one is agreeing with you (except for the final what is to be done) that is a sign of PWNage. The fact of the matter is that you haven't convinced anyone, but AS has most definetly.

MrFun and Monkspider are NOT on my side. MrFun may be gay, but he's also a whacked Christian and a history major, and is easily overwhelmed in debates and caves to be polite.

Monkspider is just...erm...special.

Why don't you actually answer the questions I've posed, rather than ignoring them and trying to break my spirits so I quit? You know that doesn't work on me.

Answer my questions, otherwise drop the pom-poms and go back to watching the Devils play.

I also don't gauge my opinions and beliefs on what's popular or who's agreeing with me (which apparently you do, because I honestly don't think you even read most of this debate). I think for myself and make opinions myself, whether or not 99% of Poly agrees or disagrees with me is irrelevant.

[Asher]

I think the fact that you and AS both refuse to address the most pertinent issues, and instead rely on ad hominem-like attacks, says more about how the debate is going than what MrFun's opinion is.

[Last Conformist]

Someone kill Asher for me the next time he babbles on about "tests will be made anyway"?

Get this into your head: Tests can and will fail. People will be infected by HIV from blood and sperm donations as long as such are carried out.

Now, if you share my belief that donations are to serve the recipients, not the donators, the goal clearly should be to get the needed amounts of donations and those as safely as possible, to minimize the numbers infected. If reaching those goals are best met by excluding black people with the letter 'j' in their middle name, fine by me (I do recognize that some exclusions would be politically impossible, but discluding gays clearly isn't).

You, OTOH, seem to believe that donations are some sort of affirmation of the human worth of the donators. I'm sorry, but I find that a rather sick view.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Someone kill Asher for me the next time he babbles on about "tests will be made anyway"?

Get this into your head: Tests can and will fail. People will be infected by HIV from blood and sperm donations as long as such are carried out.

Now, if you share my belief that donations are to serve the recipients, not the donators, the goal clearly should be to get the needed amounts of donations and those as safely as possible. If reaching those goals are best met by excluding black people with the letter 'j' in their middle name, fine by me (I do recognize that some exclusions would be politically impossible, but discluding gays clearly isn't).

You, OTOH, seem to believe that donations are some sort of affirmation of the human worth of the donators. I'm sorry, but I find that a rather sick view.

I also find it a rather blatant strawman, but whatever.

Perhaps in your world, you can make it so only that straight, white men can donate. Women have a higher rate than men, and blacks have a rate about 5x higher than whites, but I don't consider that acceptable.

You seem to be under the impression that there's an abundance of people donating blood. Over here at least, there's almost always a shortage, and continually restricting who can donate based on stereotypes is ridiculous.

Ask who has had unprotected sex, not which gender they have sex with.

I find your view rather sick, where we can freely discriminate based on stereotypes in an area that constantly is asking for more people to donate.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If it'll shut you up:

http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r020710.htm

In a large CDC study, conducted in sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics in five major U.S. cities, researchers found the rate of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) to be nine times higher than among women and heterosexual men.

So now you can be officially PWNED. Not only have your 'allies' backed the other horse, but you were dead wrong on the stats.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
If it'll shut you up:

http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r020710.htm

In a large CDC study, conducted in sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics in five major U.S. cities, researchers found the rate of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) to be nine times higher than among women and heterosexual men.

So now you can be officially PWNED. Not only have your 'allies' backed the other horse, but you were dead wrong on the stats.

I already know it's higher, I've said that repeatedly.

But it's still ridiculously small to ban the entire minority, which is the issue.

As I thought, you haven't been reading this thread.

In order to be "dead wrong' compared to women and heterosexual men, wouldn't I have had to say that gays had a lower infection rate than them? Which I certainly did not.

Try reading before responding next time.

[Asher]

Also, from you link:

Other research has also shown higher infection rates among MSM of color compared to white MSM. For example, a CDC study of young MSM, ages 23 to 29 in six U.S. cities, found that African-American MSM had an annual infection rate of 14.7 percent, compared to 2.5 percent among whites.

So why is sexuality the only factor, not race?

[DinoDoc]

So much fury over masterbating into a cup.

[Asher]

There's something fishy about those numbers, I think.

If 4.8% of gay men are infected annually, and there are 14.5M gay men, that means 696,000 gay men are infected annually.

Edit: Looking at the study, I don't think it's a good source to use: the numbers are based on "high risk" patients, not the entire country on average, which is why the figures are f*cked. It was a nice try though, Imran.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Asher

I also find it a rather blatant strawman, but whatever.

If that's no your view (and note I never claimed it was), then care to tell what is your view.

Perhaps in your world, you can make it so only that straight, white men can donate. Women have a higher rate than men, and blacks have a rate about 5x higher than whites, but I don't consider that acceptable.

I've gathered that.

You seem to be under the impression that there's an abundance of people donating blood. Over here at least, there's almost always a shortage, and continually restricting who can donate based on stereotypes is ridiculous.

In case you've not noticed, I'm talking principles here, not practical implementation. Anyway:

With blood it's pretty clear-cut - it's better taking a somewhat higher risk to infect someone with HIV than letting them die from blood loss, so if there's a shortage, it makes sense to take in higher-risk categories of donators. (Of course, we may indeed see political limits as to what the public will accept.)

With semen it's trickier - no-one needs a donation like you may need a blood transfusion. But we can't very well allow the recipient to accept to chose whatever level or risk she's ready to accept, because if things go wrong, it's the taxpayers that are gonna pay for her treatment. I guess the best solution would be to define a societally acceptable level of risk, and if there aren't enough donors below that level, well tough luck for the would-be recipients.

Ask who has had unprotected sex, not which gender they have sex with.

Ask both.

I find your view rather sick, where we can freely discriminate based on stereotypes in an area that constantly is asking for more people to donate.

I've explained why I find discrimination acceptable in this area, while you, near as I can tell, have not why you don't, beyond hinting it's not because of a right to donate.

The discrimination against gays, BTW, does have a grounding in epidemological facts.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Try reading before responding next time.

I did. Obviously you haven't. The question is who is a high risk. If you are 9 times more likely to get a disease than the majority of people, then you are a high risk! This isn't hard to understand. Even if it is under 1% it is still 9 times higher than the average.

So why is sexuality the only factor, not race?

And you lecture ME on reading?

African-American MSM

So yes black gay guys definetly shouldn't be donating. Also you still haven't paid attention to the fact that blacks also have a higher percentage of drug users. So saying that being black itself leads to higher risk AIDS is ignorant if you don't discount IV drug users.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And if you don't like that number, try this one from a pro-homosexual site:

http://www.homohealth.org/taskforce/manifesto.htm

one in seven Gay, Bisexual, and other men who have sex with men are infected with HIV.

(Psst... I think they are talking about all gay men here and not 'high risk' patients).

[Gibsie]

One in 7 sexually-active gay men have HIV? Bloody hell...

Although I thought about the stats for those with AIDS that I posted earlier and came to a similar conclusion: that the problem is far greater than I initially thought. It may indeed be justified to ban donations from gay men given these statistics, although I still think only those who have unprotected sex should be banned.