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Comment by Dove | Hacker News Reader

It's the same reason they tested me for STDs when I got pregnant, even though I married a virgin as a virgin and we have been faithful forever. It's not about what you believe about yourself and your partner. It's about the statistics.

Someone else's life is on the line. They need to be sure.

Though I must admit, I'm surprised the policy is in place with marrow donations. With blood donations, sure, transfusions are a routine thing and your blood is highly replaceable. With marrow donations, though, someone may need your marrow or they'll die. I'd think a match, even if it carried a slight statistical chance of HIV, would be something they'd want to know about.

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It's not just about statistics. For blood donations, if I had unprotected sex with a different HIV infected partner every day for a year, then stopped doing this for a year and one day, I would be eligible to donate blood.

If, however, I had sex with a man once in the last 30 years I am not eligible.

Why is it more sensible to turn away gay people then it is to turn away people who have regularly exposed themselves to HIV?

It's not. Her comment makes no sense, at least to me. Anyways, I am just curious, couldn't you just lie about your sexual orientation at the time of screening? I think it's awful that you should have to, but if your desire is to save lives, why let our backwards medical establishment get in the way? At the very least you could notify them if/when a match was found, and let the recipient decide...

If someone needs a bone marrow transplant, their immune system is severely compromised (effectively eliminated). If they're given marrow from an infected donor, they'd have no way to fight off the resulting infection. It would be a death sentence.

On the other hand, many people who need a marrow transplant have some flexibility as to when they can get the donation. This is why the guidelines are so strict: the risk/reward ratio is balanced in favor of caution.

> Someone else's life is on the line. They need to be sure.

I'm pretty sure if my life was on the line I'd rather get both bone marrow and HIV than neither. HIV is essentially a chronic disease nowadays in the developed world, and if there was any suspicion of HIV in the donor they could add antiretrovirals into the cocktail I'd already be taking.

It's not as if gay men are the only ones to get HIV, anyways.

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