DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - I want you to have my organs, but you can't have 'em

**ServiceColas** · 01-08-2008, 07:25 AM

From what I recall, organ screening isn't particularly good because it's such a short timespan - they do what they can but there are a lot of things they can't spot with enough accuracy. I'm not as sure about blood, there they have plenty of time; but HIV can be very hard to spot as it is, even with plenty of time; with the highly compressed timeframes of organ donation they presumably are making the decision to play odds (As Vesayen says) rather than take the risk.

I think you'd have to know the actual numbers better in order to really make a judgment on this; I tend to side with the authorities on this one, because a) I doubt they're homophobes (group of highly educated people with a scientific bias; much less likely to be homophobic); b) they're doctors and presumably care very much about saving lives; and most importantly, c) they know the facts and we don't.

If anal sex is the risk factor, they could certainly focus on that; but they probably want to reduce the chances of someone forgetting/lying. Also, given that they're not necessarily asking the actual person in these cases, they probably don't want to have to ask relatives that, of their dead gay son

It's also less obviously a 'no' factor; people will tend to fudge when they know they're being asked a disqualifying factor more so than when they don't.

01-08-2008, 07:25 AM	#10
ServiceColas Join Date Nov 2005 Posts 517 Senior Member	From what I recall, organ screening isn't particularly good because it's such a short timespan - they do what they can but there are a lot of things they can't spot with enough accuracy. I'm not as sure about blood, there they have plenty of time; but HIV can be very hard to spot as it is, even with plenty of time; with the highly compressed timeframes of organ donation they presumably are making the decision to play odds (As Vesayen says) rather than take the risk. I think you'd have to know the actual numbers better in order to really make a judgment on this; I tend to side with the authorities on this one, because a) I doubt they're homophobes (group of highly educated people with a scientific bias; much less likely to be homophobic); b) they're doctors and presumably care very much about saving lives; and most importantly, c) they know the facts and we don't. If anal sex is the risk factor, they could certainly focus on that; but they probably want to reduce the chances of someone forgetting/lying. Also, given that they're not necessarily asking the actual person in these cases, they probably don't want to have to ask relatives that, of their dead gay son It's also less obviously a 'no' factor; people will tend to fudge when they know they're being asked a disqualifying factor more so than when they don't.
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