Two years after Canadian Blood Services created a $500,000 grant to research if and when gay men can safely donate blood, not a single scientist has applied to do the work.
And officials are baffled by the reluctance.
Current rules bar men who have been sexually active with another man since 1977 from donating blood for his entire lifetime because of fears it would be tainted by HIV. The policy has been hotly contested.
The blood ban against gay men made headlines last year when a lawsuit required an Ontario judge to rule if the rules were discriminatory under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She ruled the ban was lawful.
"Researchers of Canada: pay attention. Get on this," said Lorna Tessier, director of public relations for Canadian Blood Services. "It's a fully funded grant opportunity in a very interesting area of research."
Not a single research team has applied for the grant, which is jointly funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research. Tessier said she doesn't know why.
The research could ultimately open the door for gay men to be added to the donor list.
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© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw
2 comments:
They tried discriminating in this way in the UK for the same reason back in the eighties (Thatcher and Tebbit).
But it was deemed unnecessary and undesirable after it turned out that our National Health Service has bought blood from outside our country, not screened it and infected far more people with HIV virus than any blood from known gay men had every done.
From that time on the ban was dropped and today, under our 'Equality' law it would be illegal to so discriminate anyway.
I hope they come to their senses in Canada soon.
The ban on blood donation from gay people in the UK is still very much in effect. The current UK Govt have advised they are not and will not be involved in any way in removing the ban.
The only way that a gay or indeed bisexual man, who has ever had sex with men to give blood in the UK is to lie.
http://www.blood.co.uk/can-i-give-blood/exclusion/
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