Brent Rose
Managing Editor
Turning away potential blood donors in order to ensure public health and safety is not discriminatory. Excluding a group based on their sexual orientation and not their behaviour, however, is. 
The Canadian Blood Services (CBS) continues to ban men who have had sex with other men (or MSM) from giving blood, even if the last time they had sex with a man was 1977.
The Cord’s Shagun Randhawa said in her opinion piece, “Ban on gay blood donations justified,” that the gay ban is acceptable for several reasons, noting gay men are at the greatest risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and that testing for the virus is not 100 percent accurate within a three-month period following the initial contraction of the disease.
Right; banning men within that three-month period is one thing, but if you had sex with a man in 1977, I’m pretty sure you would know if you had HIV/ AIDS by now.
The problem with CBS’s policy is that it’s outdated. It’s discriminatory and unjustified because it doesn’t take into account a person’s behaviour; rather, it evaluates donors based on sexual preference.
The Canadian Federation of Students’ (CFS) campaign “End the Ban” is right to call the CBS policy discriminatory because the ban is too general. By evaluating donors on their behaviour, rather than their overall sexual orientation, CBS will be able to avoid broad discriminations like this.
Asking precise questions, like whether a donor has had sex in the last three months or whether they are in a long-term relationship or are married, would get them helpful data without barring healthy gay donors from giving blood.
The evaluation should also include questions like ‘How many different people have you had sex with in the last three months?’ and ‘Have you been tested for HIV/AIDS before donating blood?’
The CBS stated that the reason the MSM ban is in place is a purely statistical matter, but just asking about a donor’s sexual orientation does not fall under the scientific method; in fact, it’s lazy and inefficient data collection.
This is not the first time organizations have used “science” to discriminate against minority groups. As an avid proponent of all things scientific and mathematical, I can’t stress enough just how flawed the CBS’s statistical excuse is.
