We live in an age of revisionism. The 4th amendment has been shredded by the so-called patriot act and 24/7 surveillance by NSA. The Republican Party, always conservative in the 20th and 21st centuries, is now retrogressive. Climate change is denied despite a ratio of medical citations of 33000:167 pro vs con. For those who like percentages, this is .051% con vs. 99.949% pro climate change.

Does anybody remember 1980 when the "gay plague" erupted? Many people cheered because they thought the amount of gay men would be severely reduced by the illness. Saint Ronnie famously ignored the impending health disaster, which "trickled up" into the mainstream, unlike the mythical benefits of trickle down voodoo economics.

Gradually, the realization broke, amongst those who cared, that blood transfusion was overtaking the male-male sexual relations in frequency. Ugh. What is more, prostitutes of the female variety often became donors of HIV virus to their male clientele. nHow much was said about that? Not much. In fact the transmission of heterosexual AIDS has been virtually ignored except in parts of Nevada, where prostitutes are regularly checked for Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) of which AIDS is certainly the most frightening, but certainly far from the only potentially deadly result of mixing human bodily fluids, such as the subacute epidemic of Hepatitis C (HCV) which was only identified in 1989, 9 years after AIDS was virally identified in 1990 (though discovered in 1989).

Now HCV is the commonest cause of non-alcoholic cirrhosis and hepatoma (liver cancer). HBV and HAV do their share of mischief, but HCV is readily transmissible because of multiple routes of infection.

HCV transmission:

HCV is spread primarily by blood-to-blood contact associated with intravenous drug use, poorly sterilized medical equipment, needlestick injuries in healthcare, and transfusions.[2][3] Using blood screening, the risk from a transfusion is less than one per two million.

Events leading to decline of transfusion-transmitted HCV at US blood centers:

Decline in HCV transmission via blood

Here's an overview of detection/restriction algorithms for HCV reduction:

Algorithm for viral testing

Note that number, blood-borne infection via transmission of HCV is about 1:2,000,000. Pretty low risk--actually less than your chances of getting struck by lightening, especially if you live in Florida.

So much for HCV. Let's talk about AIDS.

Advances in blood screening for AIDS has actually proceeded more rapidly than that for HCV. This next article discusses advances in blood screening, particularly for AIDS:

Modern polypathogen blood screening.

With improved screening, most new transmissions now occur as a result of the ‘window period’ interval between the time the donor is infected and the moment at which tests are capable of detecting the agent. Increased sensitivity of screening tests has gradually closed this window. The residual risk from repeat donors approximates 1 : 144 000 for HBV, 1 : 1 935 000 for HCV and 1 : 2 135 000 for HIV, although rates for these agents are some twofold greater amongst first-time donors

So, even if we use figures concerning viral transmission from first-time donors, the rate of AIDS transmission is still lower than for HCV. So why then do we get this nonsense?

FDA double-speak and homophobia

The FDA blood ban was first enacted during the initial breakout of the disease as a measure to prevent spreading the virus, but since then the law has become outdated primarily due to new technology. According to the FDA, testing of donated blood has reduced HIV transmission through donated blood from 1 in 2500 to 1 in 1.47 million. With such great progress HIV screening, the restrictions on men who have had sex with men is not only discriminatory but also highly unscientific.
Since the change of the FDA policy, the agency has publicly stated, “We have taken great care to ensure this policy revision is backed by sound science and continues to protect our blood supply.” This might sound reasonable given the relatively high HIV infection rate in the gay community. However, the rate has also drastically increased among black women and people over 50. Why is it that these groups of people are not restricted from donating blood? Why no age restriction seeing that infections are rising much faster for people over 50, than for those under 40 due to a lack of proper sex education, resulting in higher incidences of unprotected sex? If the FDA truly needed to promote sound science and protect the blood supply, they should have also placed the one year abstinence restriction on women of color and the elderly.

Why does not FDA require female prostitutes to undergo this invasive questioning? Does the FDA require long questionnaires of hemophiliacs or major trauma victims who received multiple transfusions?

The answer is NO.

If any of you are wondering about this continuing homophobic double-standard, then I pose another fact for you: new immigrants to be certified for admission to this country have to be screened for syphilis and tuberculosis. They do not have to be screened for AIDS. Why the disparity? Is there any other reasonable explanation for this non-scientific invasion of personal privacy other than homophobia?

I await to be enlightened.

Note: Medical trogdolytism abounds in other corners of the discipline, about which I shall discourse anon.

(edited for typos)