McGill Students vs Hema-Quebec

Ok so this is a step in the right direction. I'm not going to comment on the actions of the SSMU executives nor the comments released by Queer McGill, but I am going to discuss the actions of Hema-Quebec because therein lies the heart of the problem.

Tell me if this makes any sense to you:

Hema-Quebec says they have a shortage of blood. So they run blood drives to get more blood. But in the screening process, they weed out all the donors who might pose a risk to the blood supply pool. So far so good. You sit down, and answer a number of questions, the likes of which include: have you been in jail, have you injected yourself with drugs, have you sold yourself for sex, etc etc. All reasonable questions. And then there's the doozy: for male donors, have you had sexual contact with another man since 1977? At this point, if you are queer and have had sex with another guy, you are automatically disqualified from donating blood. Ever.

So what's the problem? The problem is that in doing this, Hema-Quebec has chosen to exclude a large portion of the general public from donating blood. Why, you might ask? Because they believe we are a statistically higher risk of being infected with HIV. Now I don't know about them, but I know how to read statistical analyses. And based on what I've seen, men who have sex with other men are at no higher risk of being infected with HIV than women who have sex with men. However, people who have unprotected sex with each other are at higher risk of being infected with HIV. That's the difference.

The question then becomes: if these statistics are correct, then why would Hema-Quebec continue to enforce it's discriminatory policies? The answer is simple, this organization is run by homophobic bigots who have "massaged" the data to fit their needs. They have twisted the stats to show that they are correct in disqualifying all sexually active gay men. How sad. By excluding us from contributing to the blood supply, they have denied patients in need the opportunity to benefit from our blood.

Furthermore, Hema-Quebec claims that there is a possibility that tainted blood from "high risk" groups could slip by their lab screening. I'm not a lab technician, nor am I an expert on viruses, but I would think that one HIV particle is the same as any other, regardless of origin. So it then stands to reason that if a straight woman or man who was HIV-positive donated blood, couldn't that blood possibly get by the screens and make its way into the blood supply? Logically, this makes sense, and it points to a critical flaw in Hema-Quebec's defense. If careful screening of blood cannot be guaranteed, then how can they justify taking blood from anyone? There is thus no reason for Hema-Quebec to discriminate against gays, or anyone else for that matter.

My issue with this situation is that Hema-Quebec continues to whine about not having enough blood to give to recipients in need. Well, if they'd simply revise their policies then there might not be such a tremendous shortage of blood. What they need to do, is to step into the 21st century, look at the changes in behaviour of our current society and then make the necessary changes to their policies. Additionally, they need to make sure that screening of blood is done in a safe and efficient manner so that blood from anyone is properly tested and destroyed should it be found to be contaminated. Only then will it be safe to say that donating blood is truly saving lives.