Do we have a right to know where transplant organs come from?
#1
Posted 19 November 2008 - 10:39 AM
That is one badass baby.
#2
Posted 19 November 2008 - 12:56 PM
My best theory breaks down like this:
There are more straight people than gay people.
Many of those straight people are tightasses and would never sleep with lots of people.
Gays are typically not tightasses, being that they are breaking away from the mainstream in the first place in admitting to be gay, and here's the part that sounds bigoted, a lot of gays sleep with lots of people. HIV spreads.
There being more straight people than gay people skews the statistics so it looks like being gay = HIV.
I know that sounds awful, but I have observed some of it. Not all, of course, but many gays and bisexuals tend to be "loose," seeing as they are breaking away from mainstream morals in the first place, and are comfortable with themselves, etc. Which would be fine if it weren't for the risk of disease. And a lot of straight people are loose, too, but there's a lot more religious/conservative/etc straight people than gays and they kinda balance the statistics out more favorably for straight people.
And the thing is, since there are more straight people than gays, as well as the difference in mindsets (tightassed right-wingers who think homosexuality and promiscuity is of the devil) the ratio gets all messed up. Let's say half of gay people sleep around a lot, but only a quarter of straight people sleep around a lot. Half of both sleeping-around groups get HIV. Well, that's a quarter of gay people right there, and only an 8th of straight people, so people put up the stats and stuff and it leads people to believe that gay = HIV.
Yeah those numbers are all wrong and I'm just making stuff up, and I've probably already offended someone. But I'm just trying to come up with a reason that the HIV numbers are so much higher within the gay population.
(Someone once presented to me the theory: "Since gays are such sinners, they're often suicidal, so they use drugs to make them feel better, and share needles and stuff, cuz like all gays are druggies to deal with their depression from being sinners, so more gays than straight have HIV." Wow.)
Really I think the HIV numbers are just high in the "people who sleep with lots of other people sans-protection" population.
So in regards to the donor organs thing, can we just ask, "was this person a slut?"
I dunno. My jury is out on this. I don't think people should get names, for sure, since the families of these donors often don't want to see or hear from the person who has their son's heart or whatever, yet the people who got the donation typically want to thank the family.
But if an organ is at high-risk for HIV, that should be told to them, right? I remember I freaked out when I found out my zombie-ACL could give me HIV. They didn't tell me that was a possibility till after they put it in. Before that, I didn't even ever think about tissue and organ transplants spreading HIV, it just never crossed my mind. I know nothing about my new ACL but if they had told me, "the donor ACL we got you has a high risk for HIV" I would have opted for the kind of replacement surgery where they cut off a piece of my muscle and turn that into an ACL.
But the thing is, how do you determine what is high-risk for HIV? Because I really don't think it's fair to say, oh, this person is gay, it automatically has high-risk for HIV.
I'm also wondering, how come gay men can't give blood but they can donate organs? That doesn't make sense to me.
#3
Posted 19 November 2008 - 02:06 PM
So, we're still seeing the effects of Ronald Rayguns evil policies. Because we allowed the rate of infection to go so high among gays without any thought to treatement or identification, that means there were a lot of them infected that didnt know. Many, many gay advocates have pointed out this issue with a famous gay novelist even suggesting, in the eighties, that those dying of aids should use suicide bombings as a tactic to gain the notice of politicians who were ignoring their plight.
So, no, it isn't just sleeping around.
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#4
Posted 19 November 2008 - 03:45 PM
They should have tested the donor better, and that's why she should be able to sue. Nothing more.
Less Is More v4
Now resigned to a readership of me, my cat and some fish
#5
Posted 19 November 2008 - 04:28 PM
As for the right-to-refuse bit, organ donation is a voluntary process and you have the right to refuse whatever organs you want, and if the fact is that gays are a high risk for HIV then the person should be notified. In fact, terrible as it may sound, if they are in fact a high-risk group and the screening process isn't perfect, I wouldn't want a kidney from a gay man any more than I'd want a lung from a smoker.
However, I'm not sold on them being a significantly higher risk as no statistics have been presented.
Famous gay novelist? Was it Chuck Palahniuk? I heard he was gay, and damn it that just sounds like something he'd say.
-John Carpenter's They Live
"God help us...in the future."
-Plan 9 from Outer Space
nooooo
#6
Posted 19 November 2008 - 04:46 PM
Yeah it didn't get as researched and stuff as it would have been, since it was affecting gays so less people cared, but that doesn't explain why it's so much more more prevalent among the gay population. It was ESPECIALLY so back when it first came around.
@Chyld: As far as screening donations - HIV doesn't show up right away sometimes. Of course they test everything for HIV, hence donating blood basically being some people's "free HIV-test." The thing is, a lot of times it can show no HIV, and then a little while later the HIV shows up.
And yeah, if someone's dying from whatever it is, I'd say, better an HIV-infected whatever than nothing. However, there are plenty of transplants where the person could choose to wait a couple more months with little risk and hope for a better organ/tissue, or as in my case, there's no issue of dying so you'd pass the HIV-organ/tissue and wait for another option.
#7
Posted 19 November 2008 - 05:18 PM
The accusation that Reagan ignored funding AIDS research is unquestionable; it is well-documented that he promoted research in the wake of the death of friend Rock Hudson. Rock was the first celebrity victim, and after his death research kicked in in a big way. The accusation of discrimination is therefore made not due to any evidence of bias (ie Reagan is never quoted as saying that he would deny funding to such research, unlike some of his contemporaries, including his communications director Pat Buchanan who thought that the virus was god's punishment); the accusation is made because the reaction to the death fo a friend drew attention to itself. This is fairly typical; once a politician or a politician's friend gets caught up in somehting, the thing gets more government attention. Because the president's friend was a celebrity as well, AIDS suddenly got a lot of celebrity attention as well.
Orator: who cares what Reagan felt about private organizations? The accusation is that his government did nothing to react to a new disease that killed more than 20000 Americans in the time from its discovery in 1981 to Reagan's first mention of it in 1987 (one year after Hudson's death). Can you imagine any other epidemic receiving such presidential silence? This is the legacy of the Falwell "Moral Majority"years.
I think the donor process should be strict in its screening. You shouldn't be able to get a donor card if you are a member of a known risk group. "Gay" wouldn't be listed as one of these groups, nor would "IV drug user," but there are qualifying questions that would place you in such a group, such as number of partners in the last calendar year (more than 1 is high risk), and needle-sharing (ever done that = high risk). These are questions they ask you when you donate blood.
I wouldn't want a system whereby folks could screen their donors, mainly because this would likely mean that organs would rot while people made up their minds. I just want a screening process that works to limit transmission of disease. In this case, the donor's organ was tested and screened, but the disease was not found. This system, with one incident in 20 years, I consider this a system that works.
#8
Posted 19 November 2008 - 05:24 PM
Spoon- Ok, so aids effected the gay community first. We can agree on that. I believe it was due to a lack of anyone trying to mount a campaign against the problem or educate people, either due to apathy or to a desire to kill queers. And the reason aids rates went up among gay people and didnt spread so quickly among straight people was that the first infections were in gays, and gays tend to be, ya know, gay... with other gay people. So, the government figured it was solely their problem and that good, clean god loving Americans would be safe. Only when straight folks started dying did the pigs start to care.
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#9
Posted 19 November 2008 - 07:06 PM
Let's make this a little simpler.
The resaon AIDS is more rampant in the gay "Community" is beacuse the main reason people wear condoms is to prevent pregnancy. Something that is not a high priority fear amongst men who do men.
Also... EVERYONE gets laid in the rainbow universe because men are less superficial than women, there I said it.
EDIT: Also, I don't want the lungs of a smoker, the liver of an alcholic, the eyes of anyone who watches reality TV, the eardrums of midrifts, kidney's of a shut in, bone marrow from stunt driver, etc.
This post has been edited by barend: 19 November 2008 - 07:19 PM
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#10
Posted 19 November 2008 - 07:12 PM
That is one badass baby.
#11
Posted 19 November 2008 - 07:27 PM
*edit* Not too sure about women to women actually. Can't remember what the odds were on that.
This post has been edited by Dr Lecter: 19 November 2008 - 07:33 PM
#12
Posted 19 November 2008 - 07:38 PM
tee hee hee hee
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#13
Posted 20 November 2008 - 01:25 PM
What about black people? Going by No Queer Organs Thx, one should not want black organs either, seeing as they are 12% of the US population (along the lines of the gay population) and this is how AIDS breaks down racially:
That sure is close to the majority!
#14
Posted 20 November 2008 - 05:36 PM
Also, if that graph is indicative of just the U.S., then if people got wind of it they might start wanting to refuse black organs, because they're stupid like that. But I'm guessing that's a worldwide graph, representing Africa with AIDS running rampant no matter what sexuality, due to lack of education and protection. So I don't think race will be an issue with organ donations at this point in time, since no one's gonna get an organ from Africa anyway.
I still want to know, though - why the hell can a gay man donate a fucking necessary bodily organ but they are turned away from giving blood??
#15
Posted 20 November 2008 - 06:01 PM
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