[learc83]

Men who have sex with men account for 81% of new HIV cases diagnosed each year. You basically eliminate half of possible HIV cases by eliminating only a few percent of the population. It's a legitimate public health issue, the same as banning people from countries with high HIV rates from donating blood.

Whether an individual's rights to donate blood outweigh the risks to public health is open to debate, or whether the ban is effective is open to debate. However, the ban is driven by numbers not hate.

I tend to think the ban isn't effective simply because it relies on self reporting.

[bmir-alum-007]

It's a form of discrimination equivalent to banning African Americans from donating blood. [0] Because a group "might" engage in risky behavior, it's unfair to assume all members do and are therefore treated differently than other groups.

0: http://www.avert.org/hiv-aids-among-african-americans.htm

[learc83]

That is entirely possible. I'm not making a value judgement, I'm only stating the practical implications, and the reasons behind the ban. Society may decide that it's not worth the marginal increase (if any) in public safety to infringe on an individual's right to donate blood (if society decides this right exists).

However there are a few practical differences. Banning African American's might mean less HIV infected blood, but it's not practical because African Americans make up 12% of the population, and they make up more than that for certain blood types. Furthermore banning heterosexual African Americans wouldn't reduce the amount of potentially infected blood nearly as much as banning men who have sex with men.

If men who have sex with men had similar rates of new HIV infections to African Americans and made up 12% of the population, they likely wouldn't be banned either.

If you ban men who have sex with men, you eliminate over 3/4 of newly acquired cases and only eliminate a few percent of the population.

>Because a group "might" engage in risky behavior

They don't ban people for being gay and possibly engaging in risky behavior. They ban men who have had sex with other men. This is classified as a high risk behavior (in respect to acquiring HIV).

They also ban sex workers, because engaging in sex work is defined as a high risk behavior, not because they are making a value judgment against sex workers.

[mirimir]

Maybe they also ought to ban men who have had sex with sex workers.

[learc83]

I'm not sure if the FDA bans it, but the red cross says you shouldn't donate if you've patronized sex workers.

[mirimir]

That is very good to know!

[venomsnake]

No it is a simple and efficient engineering policy. Probably it is not fair. It does not matter. Efficiency is better that fairness in a lot of cases. That being one of them.