Equality on Campus
Nov. 14th, 2006 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jbaileyI'm pleased to see that the McGill Student Union is now refusing to allow blood drives until anti-homosexual discriminatory questions on the questionnaire can be dropped. The problem is one of stupid questions combined with discrimination. My friend Katy put it best about when she went to fill out the questionnaire: "No, I can't guarantee that I know my partner's sexual history. But I'm willing to bet my life on it."
According to an article on a recent Public Health Agency of Canada report:
(Note that the lifesite.net is a Christian, pro-life, anti-gay website. I don't have time at the moment to dig out either a better source or the original report.)
Perhaps I'm doing my math wrong, but at the point when 49% are those who don't identify as homosexual (and 40% of those are women), then you've probably got a third to half a chance that someone in that line isn't a man who's had sex with a man and could be HIV infected.
I hope that the McGill protest puts enough pressure on Health Canada to review this policy and drop the discrimination completely.
According to an article on a recent Public Health Agency of Canada report:
The PHAC report reveals that 51 per cent of those infected with HIV continue to be men who engage in homosexual activity.
(Note that the lifesite.net is a Christian, pro-life, anti-gay website. I don't have time at the moment to dig out either a better source or the original report.)
Perhaps I'm doing my math wrong, but at the point when 49% are those who don't identify as homosexual (and 40% of those are women), then you've probably got a third to half a chance that someone in that line isn't a man who's had sex with a man and could be HIV infected.
I hope that the McGill protest puts enough pressure on Health Canada to review this policy and drop the discrimination completely.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 10:45 pm (UTC)also, as the US rules go there are "high-risk" situations that keep you from donating for X amount of years, but you can donate again after that time has passed. but if you are a man who has had sex with a man you can't ever donate again, no matter how many years it may or may not have been since then or how many tests you've had or the blood bank can do on the blood.
if i'm not mistaken the rule is that if you are a woman who has had sex with a man who has had sex with a man, then you can donate again after this X time period, but the man who you had sex with can't ever donate.
VERY discriminatory weird blanket rules out there. cheers for being up on this stuff, i need to check in and see if the US FDA has revisited these rules recently, i think they are supposed to soon.