Group to protest ‘homophobic’ transplant ruling

It all began when Canadian Blood Services banned gay men from donating blood.
By JOHN MINER, SUN MEDIA
Wed, January 16, 2008

A London gay activist group is ramping up its campaign against Canadian Blood Services and hospital organ transplant programs for restrictions on donations from men who have sex with men.

The group, Standing Against Queer Discrimination, has failed to have the University of Western Ontario and its student council ban Canadian Blood Services from running blood donor clinics on campus.

It’s not about to give up, Joshua Ferguson, a director of the group, said yesterday.

“We’re not going to drop it because it’s been such a long-standing issue . . . We’re going to continue advocating for a change in the policy.”

Ferguson said the current ban on using blood from any man who has sex with a man since 1977, even just once, is discriminatory and not based in science.

It may have made sense in the early days of the AIDS epidemic when men having sex with men was the main way the virus was transmitted, but the situation has changed with a rise in women being infected, he said.

Instead of banning blood donations from gay men, Canadian Blood Services should screen people based on their sexual practices, Ferguson said.

“Not all men who have sex with men are promiscuous and practise unsafe sex. There’s a large portion of men who have sex with men who have safe sex and are in monogamous relationships.”

A spokesperson for Canadian Blood Services said the agency is conducting research to see if its screening questionnaire is still appropriate.

Italy, for one, has changed its screening to evaluate an individual’s behaviour instead of sexual orientation, she said.

But David Page, executive director of the Canadian Hemophilia Society, said his organization remains opposed to changing the criteria set by Health Canada regulations. Safety has to remain the prime consideration in managing the blood supply and the rules shouldn’t be relaxed, he said. “It doesn’t make sense to us.”

Standing Against Queer Discrimination is also upset with recent Health Canada regulations that restrict the use of organs from men who have had sex with men, calling the measures “homophobic.”

That ban is even more damaging than the blood one because it prevents people from getting much-needed organs, Ferguson said.

The group has organized a rally at noon in Victoria Park tomorrow to protest the restrictions.

Source: London Free Press