Canadian health authorities gay blood-donors must be abstinent 5 years
While homosexual activists have slammed
the deferral policy as discriminatory towards gay men, a senior Medical
Advisor at Health Canada has defended the deferral period as a
necessary precaution in protecting the blood supply from the risk of
disease caused by MSM (men who have sex with men).
“Approximately half of new HIV cases in Canada are MSM. Seventy-five
per cent of the males who are newly diagnosed with HIV are MSM", said Health Canada’s Robert Cushman to Xtra yesterday.
“This is a risk behaviour, not a sexual orientation policy".
Cushman said that research shows that even men in a committed MSM
relationship who use condoms present a greater risk of disease than
promiscuous heterosexuals who engage in anal or vaginal sex without
using condoms.
“MSM is a risky behaviour", he stated. “There’s anatomical reasons. There’s a scientific explanation".
“I think it would be remiss on our part not to concentrate on the two
risk factors [MSM and injection drug users] that have the lion’s share
of the burden of illness in the blood supply", he said. “It would be
equally unfair [to the public] to make this blood available [without a
deferral] knowing what we do about the risk factors".
Egale Canada went as far as calling CBS’s former policy “intrinsically
abhorrent to the fundamental Canadian values of equality and
non-discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender".
Homosexual activists have campaigned for more than a decade to have the ban lifted.
Canadian Red Cross had put the ban in place in 1983 after thousands of
Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated
blood. Criminal charges were laid against several doctors, blood
products companies, and the Canadian Red Cross.
The previous blood prohibition had stated: “All men who have had sex
with another man, even once, since 1977 are indefinitely deferred. This
is based on current scientific knowledge and statistical information
that shows that men who have had sex with other men are at greater risk
for HIV/AIDS infection than other people".
When Health Canada was considering lifting the ban on homosexuals giving blood last December, a U.S. based researcher warned Canadians of the “great risk” involved.
“The key problem is that, given the continuing STD epidemic among MSM, a
new disease could be hiding. The risk is too great", said Dale O’Leary
to LifeSiteNews.com at that time.
According to O’Leary these diseases include various forms of hepatitis,
herpes, drug-resistant gonorrhea, cancer-causing human papilloma virus,
cytomegalovirus, chlamydia, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA), and a host of other diseases.
O’Leary said a deferral period for MSM giving blood helps no one if an
undocumented disease with a long incubation period is hiding in the
blood or tissues, or if a well-known disease mutates into a form not
recognized by current testing.
“Although testing for known pathogens has improved dramatically,
current methods are not perfect and an increase in donations by MSM
would increase the risk of infected blood reaching recipients", she
wrote.