Men who have sex with other men, including gay and bisexual men, have an HIV infection rate 60 times higher than that of the general population, the FDA says.  They have an infection rate 800 times higher than first-time blood donors and 8,000 times higher than the rate of repeat blood donors. Tests cannot pick up a new HIV infection in the blood with 100 percent accuracy; because blood is often pooled, many people may be at risk from a single infected donor.

But the Red Cross, always struggling with blood shortages, and other groups such as gay-rights organizations oppose the blanket policy. They say that there are other ways to screen out donors at high risk of HIV infection. Sen. John Kerry, D–Mass., has also been pushing for a change in policy.

“We’ve been working on this a long time in a serious way, and I’m glad Secretary [Kathleen] Sebelius responded with concrete steps to finally remove this policy from the books,” Kerry said in a statement. “HHS is doing their due diligence, and we plan to stay focused on the endgame – a safe blood supply and an end to this discriminatory ban.”

READ.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story...

You TRUST too much. The Chicago Thug's  Administration and its HHS in the face of known dangers and faults in our blood supply has made an unscientific politically motivated and STUPID public health  policy decision, all in the hunt for votes they need in 2012 for re-election from a marginal constitutuency. The idiots did it for votes and not for public health or civil rights valid reasons given the known hazards in policy relaxation.

Those who have a higher risk for blood borne diseases as a population group subset are rightly excluded from the blood supply and are not victims of 'discrimination'.

H.   

Can you both please stay within the parameters of logical discourse? My only complaint here is the crass criminal stupidity and hypocrisy of a bunch of very corrupt politicians and ideological idiots who for the sake of merely staying in power, will do anything no matter how stupid and insane as a matter of public  policy, preying on presumed voter public ignorance and a desire for political correctness to buy votes-never mind the harm they will cause.

Like the economic and social policies that ruin millions of lives, the Chicago Thug and his minions have no compunction about making hypocritical palpably evil decisions to preserve their stranglehold on their elitist positions and power. True 1%ers to the core, these reprehensible persons have no more concern for the groups they claim to want to help than a cat has for the mouse it eats as a chew toy.

huffingtonpost.com/social/scot...

The gay community is NOT fooled about this state of affairs either.

H.