FDA! No gay sperm donations allowed.

[Mercator]

Just dropping a few statistics here...

Of new infections among men in the United States, CDC estimates that approximately 60 percent of men were infected through homosexual sex, 25 percent through injection drug use, and 15 percent through heterosexual sex. Of newly infected men, approximately 50 percent are black, 30 percent are white, 20 percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups.

Source: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/aidsstat.htm

Attachment source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/hiv_plan/
(or more specifically http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/hiv_pla...With%20Men.htm)

I'd like to agree with Asher, but well, I just don't know really. In any case, as Last Conformist said, the donations are to serve the recipients, not the donators. But I guess it also depends on how accurate the tests are, and what other factors could reduce the risk. Like only allowing those who claim to have had only protected sex. I'm not sure how that would change the statistics.

[Asher]

Originally posted by 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).

That's f*cking bull****, I know LOTS of gay people and I don't know of ANY with HIV.

It's pretty obvious that site is intended to scare many gays into getting tested, since they don't even cite a source for that outrageous number.

Have you no bull**** detector, Imran?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
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.

Higher than average does not equate high risk, Imran.

By your logic, if 1 in 1,000,000,000 people has a disease and is white, and 5 in 1,000,000,000 people have a disease and are brown, brown people are "high risk". In actuality, both are low risk, and combined with tests that are 99.99% accurate, I think it's not appropriate to ban them.

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.

So we're going to play with stereotypes, but only selectively? Isn't the gay stereotype promiscuous sex AND drugs?

Why do you constantly bring up blacks using IV drugs, and not gays? Do you think no gays use IV drugs?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Mercator
Just dropping a few statistics here...

Of new infections among men in the United States, CDC estimates that approximately 60 percent of men were infected through homosexual sex, 25 percent through injection drug use, and 15 percent through heterosexual sex. Of newly infected men, approximately 50 percent are black, 30 percent are white, 20 percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups.

This is why I don't get why the gay "community" is being singled out -- the black "community" is also "high risk" if we're going to assign everything higher than a straight, white male the label of "high risk" like Imran and AS do so conveniently.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Why do you constantly bring up blacks using IV drugs, and not gays? Do you think no gays use IV drugs?

*points to Mercator's graph... especially the difference in IDU and MSM & IDU sections*

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
*points to Mercator's graph... especially the difference in IDU and MSM & IDU sections*

Not saying they're the same, but they're sizable in both.

[Asher]

Another major issue: the VAST majority of HIV infections come from dumbasses who have unprotected sex.

That's another reason I don't get why they have to ask sexuality: if you have had unprotected sex, you're not eligable. Because of the lack of risk of pregnancy, a lot of gay men are incredibly stupid and have unprotected sex, which is why the HIV infection rate is so damn high.

If you're going to conveniently ignore black injection drug users, why won't you do the same for the vast majority of gay people infected that have had unprotected sex? If you ask the question 'have you used injection drugs' and the question 'have you had unprotected sex' you take care of both, without resorting to stereotyping one's sexuality.

I, for one, am monogamous and have also been tested, and know I'm negative, yet I'm not permitted to give blood, even though I'm Type A and a universal donor. And I can't give blood because of blanket stereotypes like this that you're trying to casually support.

Similarly, I've signed my organ donor card, but because I'm gay, they can't use them (I found out afterwards). So if I die and leave perfectly healthy organs, people will die waiting for other ones because of another blanket stereotype.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Asher

Higher than average does not equate high risk, Imran.

By your logic, if 1 in 1,000,000,000 people has a disease and is white, and 5 in 1,000,000,000 people have a disease and are brown, brown people are "high risk". In actuality, both are low risk, and combined with tests that are 99.99% accurate, I think it's not appropriate to ban them.

I don't want to wade into the larger arguement here, but this is just ugly use of logic and statistics. I don't care what the actual percentages are - all other things being equal, if someone says you have a choice between drug A and drug B, but drug B is five times more likely to have serious side effects, how often are you really going to opt for drug B?

Again, continue to argue this issue on other grounds, I'm just saying that this line of reasoning is rediculous.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kontiki
I don't want to wade into the larger arguement here, but this is just ugly use of logic and statistics. I don't care what the actual percentages are - all other things being equal, if someone says you have a choice between drug A and drug B, but drug B is five times more likely to have serious side effects, how often are you really going to opt for drug B?

Again, continue to argue this issue on other grounds, I'm just saying that this line of reasoning is rediculous.

But that was not the argument. Of course you'd prefer to have the one with the least amount of serious side effects, but if that's the logic we used, only heterosexual men above the age of 50 would be able to donate blood or sperm.

The point here is it's ridiculous to claim something is "high risk" when it's still an incredibly low risk. "higher risk" and 'high risk' are not synonymous, despite what Imran and AS think.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Asher

But that was not the argument. Of course you'd prefer to have the one with the least amount of serious side effects, but if that's the logic we used, only heterosexual men above the age of 50 would be able to donate blood or sperm.

The point here is it's ridiculous to claim something is "high risk" when it's still an incredibly low risk. "higher risk" and 'high risk' are not synonymous, despite what Imran and AS think.

Hmmm...I would think that the point is that there are other confounding variables, not where you personally draw the line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" risk.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Hmmm...I would think that the point is that there are other confounding variables, not where you personally draw the line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" risk.

If there are other confounding variables, why is it that AS and Imran want to simplify it into gay versus not-gay?

[Kontiki]

I dunno. I'm just saying that arguing X percentage risk is acceptable is stupid, and that's one of the points you're trying make.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kontiki
I dunno. I'm just saying that arguing X percentage risk is acceptable is stupid, and that's one of the points you're trying make.

So no risk is ever acceptable?

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Asher

So no risk is ever acceptable?

That's not the point. Why are you being delibertately obtuse?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kontiki
That's not the point. Why are you being delibertately obtuse?

Let's go through this.

You said:

I'm just saying that arguing X percentage risk is acceptable is stupid, and that's one of the points you're trying make.

Which means that there is no set risk that is ever acceptable.

So how can you say there is any acceptable risk if you reject the notion of saying you can set an acceptable risk level?

If you can't set an acceptable risk level as acceptable, then you either don't look at the risk level (any level is acceptable), or you say no risk level is acceptable (therefore, no risk is ever acceptable).

Which is it?