Blood Donation ... Homophobic Practice or Protecting Society????

I last donated blood during a blood drive at work. My coworker, who was a homosexual male in a monogamous relationship, was unable to donate because he was at higher risk for having contracted HIV. This had me curious if the screening of blood donors was homophobic?

According to cdc.gov homosexual males are at a higher risk of contracting HIV then non-homosexuals.  What about other categories such as state, age and race? New York has the highest rate of new infections in 2009. A person between the ages of 20-24 has the highest risk of contracting HIV. While the fastest growing rate of new HIV infections is in the African-American community. If you look at the numbers why is it that a man who has had contact with another man cannot donate blood but state, age and race are not factors which will exclude a person?

According to cdc.gov in 2009 there were 23,846 diagnoses of HIV infections through male-to-male sexual contact. In 2009, 21,652 African-Americans were diagnosed with HIV. Why is a persons sexual orientation being discriminated against but not a race when the number of new diagnosed are almost the same? Simple, because it would be wrong to discriminate against a persons race. Why then is it ok to discriminate against a sexual orientation? To be fair should no one who is a homosexual male, live in New York, is African-American or between the ages of 20-24 not be able to donate?

Instead of the practice of approved discrimination against homosexuality why not change the screening process? In 2003 the risk of contracting HIV from a blood transfusion was between 1 in 1.4 million and 1 in 1.8 million, hivinsite.ucsf.edu. Is this a result of a better screening process of donors or testing the blood for HIV anti-bodies? Almost all cases of HIV infection resulting from blood transfusion were before 1985 when testing for HIV antibody was not available to screen donated blood. (hivinsite.ucsf.edu)

Detectable HIV antibodies develop within 6 to 12 weeks of infection. (avert.org). Instead of discriminating against a complete category of people and expedite the medical process of blood donation ask two questions of all potential donors; In the last 12 weeks have you had any unprotected sexual encounters outside of a mutually monogamous relationship? If in a mutually monogamous relationship have you been in this relationship longer then 12 weeks. If the answer is yes to the first question and no to the second question the person should be disqualified for 12 weeks which is the time frame the HIV antibody would take to be detectable.  If the person answers no to the first question and yes to the second question the risk of HIV infection is very little.  If they are infected the HIV antibody would be detectable through screening of the blood.

The Different Types of HIV Testing,  April 03, 2011 from,

 http://www.avert.org/testing.htm

Transmission of HIV by Blood, Blood Products, Tissue Transplantation, and Artificial Insemination, April 02, 2011 from 

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=kb-07-02-09#S2.2X

Basic Statistics, April 03, 2011 from,

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#hivaidsage