Writing on Huffington Post, Tim Farron calls for changes to the current blood donation rules:
(This week) sees the launch of FreedomToDonate – a massively important campaign to review the discriminatory rules on blood donation in the UK. And I’m thrilled to put my support behind it, because the existing rules – which bar sexually active gay men, along with anyone who has ever injected drugs, or had sex for payment – are scientifically and socially outdated, deeply and unjustly stigmatising, and urgently need to change.
I’m proud to say that the Lib Dems have, with many others, been campaigning since 2006 to end to the ban on gay men donating blood, and in 2011 we won a partial victory. This removed the restriction on gay men – but only if they had been celibate for 12 months. By any standards this seems like a pretty high price to pay for the privilege of selflessly offering a gift that literally saves lives. Thousands of lives across the UK every day – possible even those of our parents, grandparents, children and loved ones.
You can read the full article here.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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26 Comments
It’s disappointing that Tim Farron has chosen to act like this is a civil rights issue when it’s an issue of safety in the blood supply.
I suggest anyone tempted to support this campaign reads the evidence on the matter first: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/216109/dh_129909.pdf
Jack, it is nothing to do with safety and everything to do with prejudice. As Tim Farron points out the restriction on women partners is ridiculous as well. These restrictions filter out some people of all blood groups but it is horrifying that some of those stopped from donating possess the less common universal blood group O negative which can be given to anyone eg young babies or anyone in an extreme emergency where the blood group is not known.
Please give thought to professional indemnity insurance for doctors, which can lead to caution which we might call small c conservatism.
An alternative is that many different stocks of blood are kept.
I underwent a transplant operation four years ago having been on the waiting list for nearly two years. Not much fun for me or the family. A consequence is I am on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of my life and have to avoid any infection if at all possible .
I know only too well the screening process necessary to check on the health and viability of donated organs – my transplant was with the third donated organ after the first two were rejected as unfit for purpose
I urge my good friend Tim not to rush in on this one, I hope it’s not an attempt to prove he is ‘right on’ to counter the nasty stuff used by some opponents in the leadership contest. It should be a matter for expert professionals and not for politicians.
If it’s about civil rights – then I have civil rights too – including the right to be assured that any transfusion I may need is as safe as it can be. Thank you Jack for posting the current guidelines.
Good one Tim! Never let facts get in the way of grandstanding. Even better, by the time patients who are infected with various nasty blood borne diseases start suing for compensation, everyone will have forgotten your role and you can lead a victims rights campaign.
This is a matter of public safety that should be decided on the basis of the objective scientific evidence.
That is the only criteria that matters. Campaigns based on misguided political correctness are irrelevant and irresponsible if they seek to challenge the scientific evidence.
Equally, decisions based on prejudice are unacceptable if the evidence shows otherwise.
These matters should be decided on facts not ideology.
I stand by my comment above that the policy must be based on the facts.
As a vulnerable human being with failings, fears and prejudices, I must also admit that I would be very apprehensive about receiving blood from a very sexually active rent boy with a serious problem with injecting drugs (and, presumably, sharing needles.)
Mr Farron may be thrilled to support a campaign to have such a person’s blood be given to others. I’m not thrilled about that. Mr Farron may think I am evil to harbour such thoughts. I think Mr Farron is being irresponsible.
The current rules are non-sensical, though. For example, a woman who has sex with her partner, a bisexual man, she is deferred from giving blood even if her partner is no longer deferred. Likewise, a gay man who has only protected sex with his husband of decades cannot give blood, but a heterosexual man who goes clubbing and has unprotected sex with a different person every week can.
The risk of HIV going into the blood supply would be about 1 in 4 million with or without the MSM deferrals. We need to look at alternative deferral strategies — deferring all people who have had unprotected sexual activity for X weeks (to allow tests to be undertaken and antiviral antibodies to be detected), repeated testing of blood, et cetera. But let’s be honest, even by reading these comments on LDV all places, the current rules do more to stigmatise than they do to protect.
An alternative is that many different stocks of blood are kept.
Strictly evidence-based policy the only way on this. We need the best medical experts and health professionals to lead on this.
The evidence based rules may need reviewing, revising, or whatever. Public safety rules in a dynamic society always require updating from time to time. Activities that increase the risk of contaminated blood are of extreme importance regardless of the moral, emotional, religious, stigmatising, discriminating or any other reasons that jar with liberal sensitivities.
Lives are at stake. We must have an evidence based policy to quote Judy Abel, not some ideological political correctness. It is no consolation to a terminally ill victim that the blood donor was approved by the Lib Dems.
@Richard Underhill
I do not understand your proposal. A possibly contaminated blood supply for the politically correct?
The rules *do* need revising. It is right to have a screening process that frowns on unsafe sex and a range of other behaviours that seriously stack up the odds of contaminating the donated blood supply. But the current rules owe more to blanket panics of bygone decades and lingering prejudice that conflates people with lifestyles, than it does to medical evidence or social reality.
Full credit to Tim Farron for speaking out on this, it is an issue of importance to many. It is also, by the way, longstanding Liberal Democrat policy, and not just a last minute attempt to make Farron appear ‘right on’ as regards LGBT issues.
PLEASE don’t let political correctness play a part in this.
By all means let medical professionals review the current restrictions if necessary, but this is one time when trendy, ‘right-on’ politics and the enduring need for Liberals to get the ‘Look at me – I’m doing the right thing’ nice warm glow, needs to take a back seat.
I’d go for whatever the medical professionals say. However I don’t think the public want to see politicians telling doctors how things should be done.
I saw this in the morning on the Huffington Post website and thought it would sound a lot better coming from doctors.
Of course, sometimes doctors need a nudge in political matters, but they have to lead the case.
I see Judy has said the same thing as me: health professionals need to lead on this.
Just read Farron’s article word to word. He lost ,me first time around by making it an issue about discrimination rather than science in the first few paragraphs.
He has a good point that the current rules don’t make sense, but I haven’t heard any doctors talking about a blood shortage, so I would want to see the NHS lead on this before supporting it.
@ Richard Stallard – “By all means let medical professionals review the current restrictions if necessary, but this is one time when trendy, ‘right-on’ politics and the enduring need for Liberals to get the ‘Look at me – I’m doing the right thing’ nice warm glow, needs to take a back seat.”
110%, and with Eddie too.
It may well be that rules made for a time when the threat was higher and screening impractical, and thus today stand in need of review, but i want professionals to drive it.
Peter,
I was a blood donor when I was with one large employer. The blood wagon used to park in a side street and employees were allowed to go, in terms of time, but not of production. There was time to chat to nurses and doctors before and after actually giving blood. My initial motivation was simply to find out my own blood group and carry a card in case I had an accident and was unconcious.
Yes, the issue of safety is paramount. Yes, the science needs to be right and therefore needs to be reviewed. Part of the issue is that the blood donor system operates on the lowest possible cost basis, which tends to mean reluctance to change in any way not authorised from on high in the NHS.
Trust in the NHS is not absolute and universal. I have experienced that when going under with a total anaesthetic prior to an operation on a wrist, trying to say that the wrong wrist had been labelled. Actually it had not, but the feeling of powerlessness remains, years later .
Neither my life-style nor my blood group are high risk, but imagine a gay man who has a rare blood group and whose partner or twin brother needs a blood transfusion urgently. Do you refuse the donation and risk a death? Or do you allow the transfusion and keep the donated blood separately? Bear in mind that the intended recipient might be unconscious.
Oh dear. Is this Tim trying to court the LGBT community after the “gay sex is sinful” interviews?
Relevant to blood and donors. Can I take the opportunity to draw attention to Eric Avebury’s appeal for people to become a stem cell donor —
http://ericavebury.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/save-lives-be-stem-cell-donor.html
I should declare an interest I benefited from a stem cell transplant last year.
All I knew about my donor was that he was a young man from Saxony. What more would I possibly need to know?. I am glad to be alive and thankful the he volunteered to be a donor and that the excellent Anthony Nolan organisation were able to find a match for me and that the NHS did the rest. I needed a number of blood transfusions as part of the procedure and I knew even less about the people who selflessly gave their blood to make that possible. Whoever they were I am glad they volunteered.
A pint? That’s very nearly an armful ….
TCO 30th Jul ’15 – 10:03a A pint? That’s very nearly an armful ….
Metric measures nowadays, slightly less than Tony Hancock’s armful.
John Tilley 30th Jul ’15 – 9:45am “… donor was that he was a young man ..”
Yes, necessary for some of these things, others are genetic. Please will nobody say racist, simply medical.
Advice and experience on health issues would appear to be available to the leader, some of it of very high quality.
In other parties the blame would fall on a SPAD, but not in this party.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/norman_lamb
http://www.libdems.org.uk/john_alderdice
http://www.libdems.org.uk/eric_avebury
http://www.libdems.org.uk/floella_benjamin
http://www.libdems.org.uk/sal_brinton
http://www.libdems.org.uk/brian_cotter
http://www.libdems.org.uk/navnit_dholakia
… …
http://www.libdems.org.uk/joan_walmsley
Website photo for three peers are identical, two male, one female.
This is an era of mass communications, like none before ours. Tim recognises that the media matter, and he is rightly determined to create and take every credible possibility to use the media well, to promote the party and its values. Hooray!
It is also a scientific era, like none before ours, making it vital that Tim’s media interventions are scientifically defensible. Failure to ensure this, especially so early in his leadership, will be seized on with relish by political opponents and their media cheer leaders. Take care!
A lot of the comments imply that current national blood donation policy is good science. It wasn’t when the Lib Dems adopted party policy for blood donation to be based on individual risk, it wasn’t when the twelve-month deferral was brought in and it isn’t now.
When I heard about Freedom To Donate, I was worried by the title. Donating blood is not a right, it is a privilege, and the title of the campaign implies otherwise. The Lib Dems have for years as a party understood that, and our party policy and LGBT+ Lib Dems’ campaigns reflect that. I predicted that people would make exactly the same claims they’re making in these LDV comments – that it’s about political correctness and against the epidemiological evidence.
But let’s remember that this campaign is highly visible, and is in line of Lib Dem policy. The name of the campaign is daft but its objective from its website is clear – (emphasis mine).
I am glad that Tim is backing this campaign for sensible blood donation policy which takes into account an individual’s risk. It will lead to more safe blood being donated and more lives being saved.
Dave Page 30th Jul ’15 – 12:32pm: So let the donations occur, then check the blood.