Comments on: Neff: Tropical depressions

By: Ian B.

Ian B. — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:40:42 +0000

As a former red-cross worker, myself, I can say the ban was ridiculous, but the same could be said for the entire screening process for working at a blood bank. If you had sex with another man you could risk being fired and it required various blood tests. When they found out I had tuberculosis they freaked out and treated me like I’d had some kind of new “gay-only” TB infection. Then I had a 2 hour sit down with a man who wouldn’t allow me to leave his office until he was done trying to “scold” the gay out of me and though I gladly opened up in a debate with him, he developed a holier-than-though complex which broke all standards of separating church and state. Let’s face it, the people who run the red cross, plain and simple, hate gay people. A lot. They consider it to be a mental illness as well as a guaranteed method of receiving an STD. My having TB only seemed to further support that my “abhorrent lifestyle” as he called it was the reason I’d been infected (even though I most likely got it from a Jamaican or Filipino worker who wasn’t tested and highly contagious when being allowed on the base while I had to receive regular testings to get on and off the island. Long-story-short, never work in the Federal system or expect to be treated like a human being if you work in health care. There’s no money in it anyway.

By: John

John — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:31:47 +0000

I’d love to donate blood, but I can’t because of this ridiculous rule. My guess is it will take a tragedy of such magnitude that people will die because there isn’t enough blood — then, MAYBE, they’ll realize that gay blood isn’t poison. In the meantime, I have ZERO sympathy for any shortages they suffer.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:39:04 +0000

Thank you, Ms. Neff, for standing up for those of us who are prevented from doing what we can to help others. I used to donate when I was in my early twenties and single. After entering a long term relationship I realized how unbalanced the policy was. I could not in good conscience deny my committed relationship in order to donate blood, but why should I have to?

By: Mike in MO

Mike in MO — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:49:02 +0000

Is it ethical to lie during the screening? to go back in the closet for the purpose of giving blood?