The Belgian rules around sexual activity are really outrageous imo and they don’t even achieve anything given how easy it is to lie on the donation form and thus all the blood still has to be...
The Belgian rules around sexual activity are really outrageous imo and they don’t even achieve anything given how easy it is to lie on the donation form and thus all the blood still has to be tested anyway.
Multiple sexual partners, or any new sexual partner is 4 months ban. Paid sexual relationships is a 1 year ban. Same-sex is 1 year.
I dunno what any of this really achieves (beyond encouraging dishonesty), and then the Red Cross is like “yeah so we need more blood”. Well duh, i apologize for meeting someone three fucking months ago 🤷♀️
I'm gay so naturally I applaud this. But I also wonder: does donated blood get tested? And if it does, is it by donor? By batch? How does it work? In case anyone knows.
I'm gay so naturally I applaud this.
But I also wonder: does donated blood get tested? And if it does, is it by donor? By batch? How does it work? In case anyone knows.
In the US they batch test, but the size of the batches is determined by the rate of contaminated blood. It's expensive to have to retest so they filter out people based on factors which increase...
In the US they batch test, but the size of the batches is determined by the rate of contaminated blood. It's expensive to have to retest so they filter out people based on factors which increase likelihood (at a population level) of a test coming back positive for HIV.
Nowadays its really not that expensive for them to batch smaller and HIV rates where the person doesn't know they have HIV are fairly low so the continued exclusion of high risk queer groups is really not necessary, nor saving them any money.
The Belgian rules around sexual activity are really outrageous imo and they don’t even achieve anything given how easy it is to lie on the donation form and thus all the blood still has to be tested anyway.
Multiple sexual partners, or any new sexual partner is 4 months ban. Paid sexual relationships is a 1 year ban. Same-sex is 1 year.
I dunno what any of this really achieves (beyond encouraging dishonesty), and then the Red Cross is like “yeah so we need more blood”. Well duh, i apologize for meeting someone three fucking months ago 🤷♀️
I'm gay so naturally I applaud this.
But I also wonder: does donated blood get tested? And if it does, is it by donor? By batch? How does it work? In case anyone knows.
In the US they batch test, but the size of the batches is determined by the rate of contaminated blood. It's expensive to have to retest so they filter out people based on factors which increase likelihood (at a population level) of a test coming back positive for HIV.
Nowadays its really not that expensive for them to batch smaller and HIV rates where the person doesn't know they have HIV are fairly low so the continued exclusion of high risk queer groups is really not necessary, nor saving them any money.
Every single blood sample gets tested in Belgium. Individuals are alerted if their blood was contaminated with something.