The donation of blood by homosexuals : sexual abstinence always mandatory

weerapat/epictura

Published the 30.12.2017 at 16h49

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gift of the sanghomosexualitéabstinence

It took until July 2016, and the government of François Hollande, for gay and bisexual men can donate blood. This was forbidden since 1983, when the aids epidemic was in full swing and they constituted the main group at risk.
By putting an end to exclusion deemed discriminatory, Marisol Touraine, minister of health, however, presents a condition. And not least : do not have sexual intercourse for a year. In fact, a false excuse to exclude no exclude in the law.
It is this rule that the associations perceive to be discriminatory. And it is for this reason that Foam, Stop Homophobia, Committee Idaho France or even local Elected officials against aids were seized by the Council of State.

Risk behaviours

Reason advanced at the time by Marisol Touraine : to avoid the danger and to reassure the recipients. Because statistically, gay men have more unsafe sex than heterosexuals.
“According to the work of the Institute for public health surveillance, the prevalence of HIV is approximately 70 times higher among men who had sex with men. (…) The proportion of people newly infected during the year 2012 was 115 times higher in these men than in the heterosexual population, ” and the Council of State when it rejects the request of the associations, a year later.
Here, too, they see it as discrimination. Because heterosexual people do not have to fill out a questionnaire in which they ensure not to have had sex at risk. While homosexual people are judged, a priori, on statistics.

When the virus is undetectable

Another argument advanced to justify abstinence : for a short time, a person infected with HIV does not know it and there are still no antibodies in the blood detectable by the tests.
There is actually a ” window period “, that is to say a period during which the virus is undetectable even with screening tests the most effective. This period is of twelve days.
Not having sex at all away, therefore, the risk of having the virus without knowing it. But the people who have sex exclusively heterosexual are, of course, they also concerned.

The associations are therefore a judgment based on their sexual orientation. “It is absurd. We are discriminated against because we make love “, written as ” Stop Homophobia on its website, after the decision of the State Council to maintain the restriction. An appeal to the european Court of Human rights is envisaged.