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News: Health Canada discriminates against gay men
By Psyche | January 8, 2008
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A number of organ donation groups said Monday that they are unaware of new Health Canada regulations that mean sexually active gay men, injection drug users and other groups considered high risk will no longer be accepted as organ donors.
CBC.ca, “Sexually active gay men no longer allowed to donate organs“
Ostensibly the concern is that gay men are at “at high risk of transmitting infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C and B”, but wouldn’t it be more straightforward to ask about and test for the presence of these diseases rather than ban gay men from donating organs “if the donor is a man who had sex with another man in the previous five years”?
…[E]stimates [are] that out of 100 organ donors at his Toronto hospital every year, about seven will be rejected because of the new regulations. About 4,000 Canadians are waiting for an organ transplant.
The new rules came into effect in December, though the head of the country’s largest organ transplant program at Toronto’s University Health Network has never heard of it. Officials at several programs have stated that, “because they were unaware of the new regulations, they would continue to consider all potential donor organs”.
It would seem lesibans are free to continue donating their organs at will.
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January 10th, 2008 at 1:26 am
If they adopt the same rules as donating blood, women who have had sex with a man who has had sex with a man, within the last year cannot donate either. After a year, she’s free to donate, but that man, no matter how long ago, no matter how many tests come back negative, can ever donate.
This makes me so angry. This decision isn’t made by the health system, it’s made by ignorant people about that part of the system who are still stuck in the 80s (70s even?).
We (sexual health educators) know now, that men who have sex with men are not the largest risk group any more (though a rise in bareback sex may threaten that down the line), but heterosexual women 15-24 in a monogamous relationship are actually the highest risk group right now. But they aren’t denied the right to donate (nor should they be), for a variety or reasons, largely, think of how the Canadian public would respond to the idea that straight monogamous women are “dangerous” in that regards.
Arg…
How are they planning on enforcing this? I mean, I’m an organ donor, and nowhere did I have to put whose pants I’ve been in. Are they going to ask every friend/partner/parent of a deceased man “Yes, I’m sorry they’re dead, could you just tell us did they fuck men?”
*sigh*
I’m also annoyed, but not surprised, by the lack of coverage.
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January 11th, 2008 at 10:13 am
It’s an incredibly ignorant policy on all counts.
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