ttbn, it's sad that you couldn't care less about the spread of a lethal virus in the community at large. I sincerely hope that you or any of your loved ones are not effected by it.

The source of my post was an article published by Online ABC News. Perhaps you could contact them for further details. That is of course, if you are interested.

;Our society is looking to inoculate children against hate and prejudice.'

were not they the mob who recently had to sack a journalist for lying about Trump on Thanksgiving day? They would have no staff left at CNN and abc if that rule applied to all.

Hey Aries,

Welcome to the forum.

"The great danger in this news is that men in this demographic are usually less likely to have regular sexual health checkups, thus not identifying the infection, sometimes for years."

Which demographic are you referring to?

The 'I like to go to Bankok to make out with underage kids, ladyboys or Asian prostitutes' demographic?

"Will heterosexual men also be banned from donating blood?"

If it's 'heterosexual men' who go to south-east Asian countries to make out with underage kids, ladyboys or Asian prostitutes, then we can only hope, right?

Aries: You ask, "Will heterosexual men also be banned from donating blood?"

The answer is most likely NO. The reason why is because the people who make these policies understand the mathematics of risk very well and that they should not be swayed but touchy-feely ideas of inclusion and anti-discrimination.

The raw statistic given is that more straight men in WA are now getting HIV than gays (I believe it was 26 heterosexual vs 20 homosexuals in the last year). So this seems to some, presumably like yourself, that straight men giving blood are now a higher risk than gays with respect to HIV contamination. However, what is being missed here is that there are *alot* more straight men than gays (well over one order of magnitude, ie: gays only make up single digit percentage of the population). So once you account for this, a randomly selected gay man without HIV is still considerably a higher risk of getting a new infection than a random straight man.

Also, this only covers the new infections, but for blood donations *all* infections (ie: both new and previous) have to be considered. The majority of people infected with HIV are gays. And remember, gay men only constitute a few percent of the population so there is a vastly higher risk in accepting donations from them.

By-the-way: it's been years since I've given blood, I had to stop because I developed a tumor and that ruled me out from ever giving again. But when I gave you had to satisfy many criteria: not just whether your gay or not. Eg, Hetros couldn't give blood if they've had too many partners. I imagine that the list of questions has only gotten longer since then. And if sex-tourists are too much of a risk to blood safety then they will not refrain from asking applicants if they have had sex with residents of particular countries. They really don't care if these questions appear personal, discriminatory, racist, etc.- because they are driven by science and math and not by a political agenda.

Aries,

That wasn't too hard was it? I've have now looked it up and, yes, you passed on what was reported. You could have referred to your source in the first place. That's normal procedure.

I don't care about it because I am in my late seventies. Noone I care about would ever be affected by these amoral creeps. Anyone with loose morals and who treats sex as a casual passtime is of no concern to me. There is nothing I can do about modern behaviour. People can laugh at me if they wish; but I certainly don't need to concern myself with people I am contemptuous of. They reap what the sow.

Don't let that put you off, though. All opinions all opinions are welcome here

Aries welcome and know you will be targeted here, please stay around
It is not your fault just the way some work here, we are mostly old men and some do not want views other than their own seen here
Think a bit too please stay around
Think our system of telling who can and can not donate blood is a good one
I however need to say this, a SOCIAL ACTIVIST I am deeply concerned some, will make a case for being discriminated against quite falsely
EG two recent racist charges one on a plane one in a Melbourne nightclub by people who in fact acted like the racists they claimed others are
So underline my view our blood donation system is *in no way descrimatory*