Test 2

Please select your preferred language.

請選擇你慣用的語言。

请选择你惯用的语言。

English
中文简体
台灣繁體
香港繁體

登入

記住我

初到 Fridae?

Fridae Mobile

Advertisement
Highlights

More About Us

新聞&特寫

« 較新的 | 較舊的 »
10 Jan 2008

canada bars organ donations from gay men

Gay activists in Canada have hit out at new regulations that ban gay men who have been sexually active in the past five years from donating their organs for transplant.

According to new Health Canada regulations, transplant programs will no longer be able to harvest organs from the bodies of gay men who were sexually active in the past five years.

The new rules, which came into effect without much notice in December, are similar to the regulations for determining who can donate blood although any man who has had sex with a man since 1977 is barred from ever donating blood. The rule is applied in Canada, the United Sates and almost all countries in the world except Spain, Switzerland and Italy.

Under the new regulations, groups that are at high risk of transmitting infectious diseases including HIV and hepatitis C and B will no longer be accepted as organ donors. The restrictions will also cover intravenous drug users, commercial sex workers and people who have had tattoos or body piercings in the last 12 months using shared needles, came into effect last month.

Numerous gay rights groups and health care experts have criticised the new rules as the Canadian media and various news agencies picked up on the issue this week.

The head of Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project, a gay advocacy group, was quoted as saying that the new rules which exclude any man who has had sex with a man within five years from organ donation may not only send the wrong the message but leave those preparing for live donation in the lurch.

"They seem to be making decisions that are bad for the health-care system, that don't seem to be designed to meet the real needs of risk management and that send the wrong messages about the gay community and about HIV and AIDS," Kevin Kindred said. "Of course that's frustrating and of course people find that offensive."

Dr. Philip Berger, head of family and community medicine at St. Michael's Hospital, told the Toronto Star that the rules are unfair to thousands of conscientious gays.

"What about a gay monogamous couple, (Health Canada) is not going to let them donate? It's ridiculous," says Berger. "It's been known for 20 years that the risk factor is not in being gay (but) in risky sexual behaviour."

Other medical experts have warned that the new rules could lead to deaths by shrinking an already small pool of donors.

Egale Canada, a gay political lobby organisation, is calling on federal Health Minister Tony Clement to suspend the new policy and for a panel to be appointed to review organ donor rules.

"Health Canada should be making sure the regulations stop unsafe organ transplants and not create a situation where healthy viable gay organs will be thrown away," Helen Kennedy, Egale's executive director, told Reuters.

"It's perpetuating stereotypes. It bans every gay or bisexual man who potentially is in a monogamous relationship - or other gay men who are vigilant about safe sex practices - from donating organs."

讀者回應

1. 2008-01-11 10:01  
Health Canada is a useless bureaucracy; famous for its screw-ups.
2. 2008-01-11 13:05  
So by barring sexually active gay men from donating their organs, more lives can be saved?
3. 2008-01-11 13:30  
This is a discrimination.Donating blood and organs is noble thing and its done to help save lives.No normal person will object this.With current advanced technology we could test for STD and HIV for a person so it safe to donate.
4. 2008-01-11 15:27  
Best policy: Only virgins (including heterosexuals) without tattoos, body piecings, non dentists, non-medical personnel and non-drug addicts can donate organs.
5. 2008-01-11 20:35  
I hate to tell all you HIV- guys out there, but the fact is: current HIV screening technology cannot detect the presence of HIV in the bloodstream when there are fewer than 50 copies of the virus per ml of blood. What this means is that when I, an HIV+ individual, take a blood test, the results will come back negative because my medicines have suppressed the virus to undetectable levels.

I suppose, theoretically, it is possible for someone to donate blood or an organ without knowing he is HIV+ while the test that screened for the virus produced a negative result. It is highly unlikely, but as long as the possibility exists, discrimination against potential gay donors will continue.

I am not surprised that straight lawmakers are so afraid. Since I became HIV+, my rejection rate for sex after I disclose my status is more than 9 out of 10. If my fellow gay brothers who I would expect to be more knowledgeable about HIV are so terrified of me, why would I expect straight people to be any more enlightened?

6. 2008-01-12 19:20  
While donating blood and organs is a noble thing, the medical staff dealing with these transplants are noble too.

Have anyone here thought about how they fill about them digging their gloved hands deep into a donar with possible HIV virus. Surgeons who handle scapels all the time. They could easily been infected.

Just also look at it this way, if your brother is doing a transplant for your other brother, and there's two donars, one who's a veteran gay parti animal and the other's a healthy college student, which donar would you prefer to be on the operating. table?
7. 2008-01-13 13:03  
Hmmm... I dont quite understand the law here - especially the part about 'sexually active in the past five years'. So are they trying to say they will ONLY harvest organs from the bodies of gay men who were sexually INACTIVE for five years? This is gonna be quite challenging for 2 reasons: how are they gonna determine if a deceased gay had been sexually active? Secondly, is it even possible for anyone to be sexually inactive for 5 bloody years in the first place? I have problem staying inactive for 5 days... LOL!
8. 2008-01-15 09:46  
Speaking as a Canadian, this is another of our stupid laws. This law was the result of incompetence by the former Red Cross agency in Canada who used "tainted" blood for transfusions several years ago. The result was that many people contracted hepatitis and sued the Red Cross for many millions (although I suspect lawyers got most of the money). The policy regarding donating blood came into place as a result. Personally, my blood donatation was declined as a result of my honesty. Had I been dishonest, or maybe some infected whacko that wanted to donate infected blood, and lied about my activities, they would have taken my blood.

So as it stands if you are determined to give blood and lie about your lifestyle then they will accept your blood donation in Canada. All this does is make me wonder about the blood screening process that they say is so much more effective now. If so, then why the discriminatory policy? This isn't about protecting people from infected blood, this is about protecting the agencies from law suits.

If I were to be in need of some vital organ to continue life, would I care what lifestyle the person had lived that it had come from? So organs from a prostitute are ok but organs from a monogamous gay man are not. Such bullshit.

9. 2008-01-18 14:16  
Umm...what happened? Thought Canada's policies are supposedly 'progressive'- at least compared to the US of A? =p And do those poor things @ Health Canada really think AIDS or other STDs can never touch promiscuous heterosexuals as well???
Seems like the quality of tertiary education's gone down a notch somewhere.
10. 2008-01-19 12:34  
this is ridiculous! so does that mean heteros with health issues can donor and affect others in whatever way they want while gay men with no health problems aren't even allow to save others' lives? i just don't get it. but i guess one way to explain it is that Health Canada are afraid of law suits more over than people's lives as FlyingSpur mentioned, lol.

i seriously feel stupid and embarrassed being a canadian.
11. 2008-01-28 17:39  
Post #5 about1in300 , you are very correct. The problem is that most of us here are bimbos and do not bother to read more of the disease that is killing us slowly.

請先登入再使用此功能。

Social


請選擇新聞及專欄版本

精選個人檔案

Now ALL members can view unlimited profiles!

Languages

View this page in a different language:

讚好

合作夥伴

 ILGA Asia - Fridae partner for LGBT rights in Asia IGLHRC - Fridae Partner for LGBT rights in Asia

Advertisement