Should blood be banned because of a persons sexual preference?
I disagree with the FDA policy that gay men cannot donate blood; or wait they actual said the blood donation is "deferred at this time." What? Blood supplies are constantly at a shortage, excluding otherwise healthy individuals is ridicilious. Sure in the 70's-80's the AIDS/HIV growing outbreak lead to this ban; however, since then society has come along way and tests for infected blood has improved and if properly tested the infected blood would not enter the supply. So why is it still banned?
On another blood issue... People who have hemochromatosis cannot donate blood in WIsconsin. Hemochromatosis is a genetic disorder where a persons body stores iron. The only solution to reducing the effects is blood donation. However, Wisconsin is not licensed by the FDA to accept this blood. (Licensing to accept is simply the blood center filing a form with the FDA). There are centers in Illinois, which accept this donation, and the blood is used. (I should know, I travel to Illinois regularly to donate...and I have this genetic disorder.) To learn more visit :
http://www.americanhs.org/whatisit.htm
I do not get it, why do we ban blood from otherwise healthy resources? I need to donate blood to prevent iron build up and organs shutting down. The person featured on tonights show is gay, but healthy and routinely gets tested for AIDS so his blood should be safe to donate.
I think if we exclude people from donation we will always have a shortage in blood supply. I believe testing done on all blood donated will ensure the supply is safe.
The story about the 8 year old with a cell phone who made over 100 calls to 911 as a prank got me wondering when should a child have a cell phone?
I thought it was good that children had cell phones (especially the restricted dial ones) for an emergency. With kids going missing every day I thought that if some had a cell phone would their kidnapping be prevented if they could have just called someone?
Perhaps cell phones and kids are not a good mix, perhaps a better investment would be a GPS shoe locator.
So, now I am torn, cell phone or no cell phone for kids? I do believe it is good to teach your kid about the uses for cell phones, but yet as this story shows, kids will be kids and no matter how much the parents try to teach them they still can end up making poor choices like this one did making prank 911 calls.
