Considerable controversy has arisen in the past few days as it was discovered that the Harper government implemented new regulations in December effectively excluding gay man from being organ donors. The new regulations restrict transplants from male donors who have had sex with other males in the past five years. Offensive as this may be, it is a significant improvement on the regulations affecting blood donation which, according to the Canadian Blood Services website, still preclude blood donation from any male who has had sex with another male since 1977. A thirty-year ban down to a five-year ban might be measured as progress in some circles, but only if the new limit is extended to blood donors.
The rules are discriminatory and offensive, ignoring that the public health risk is relative to a host of sexual and lifestyle practices entirely independent of male/female or male/male couplings. Canadian Blood Services cannot be entirely blamed since it is abiding by federal regulations but it could lobby Health Canada aggressively to revise the rules that were developed in the 1980s when HIV was much more of a medical mystery than it is today. CBS has not shown publicly any inclination to do so.
If organ transplant centres follow a five-year window policy, combined with all the other tests and safeguards built into the system, it will be better than traditional practices which have been more like the blood services policy; i.e. reject if gay. But is is still homophobic.
I am not fan of organ transplant programs as an earlier post attends. The health care system may be better served, in fact, by a reduced number of donors be they gay or straight. But discriminatory, homophobia should not be directing public policy. But tell that to the Harper government.
The rules are discriminatory and offensive, ignoring that the public health risk is relative to a host of sexual and lifestyle practices entirely independent of male/female or male/male couplings. Canadian Blood Services cannot be entirely blamed since it is abiding by federal regulations but it could lobby Health Canada aggressively to revise the rules that were developed in the 1980s when HIV was much more of a medical mystery than it is today. CBS has not shown publicly any inclination to do so.
If organ transplant centres follow a five-year window policy, combined with all the other tests and safeguards built into the system, it will be better than traditional practices which have been more like the blood services policy; i.e. reject if gay. But is is still homophobic.
I am not fan of organ transplant programs as an earlier post attends. The health care system may be better served, in fact, by a reduced number of donors be they gay or straight. But discriminatory, homophobia should not be directing public policy. But tell that to the Harper government.
