I feel the need to respond to the Sunday letter “Blood donations: FDA restrictions exist for a reason” because it is filled with inaccuracies and untruths.
First and foremost is the untruth that you can be infected with AIDS … you cannot. AIDS is a diagnosis that only comes after years of battling the disease when your immune system has deteriorated, your CD4 count falls below a certain level and your viral load count begins to soar.
You can be infected with HIV, which is the abbreviated name for the virus which, when left unchecked, or after long periods can destroy the immune system and then lead to an AIDS diagnosis. It is truly unfortunate that after 30 years people still need to be educated about this disease.
Another inaccuracy is the claim that 73 percent of HIV infections are from gay males. Absolutely incorrect. In fact, for the year 2009 there were 1.08 million new cases of HIV in America, of which 530,000 were contracted by heterosexuals, illegal drug users and others by non-gay infection methods. That represents half of all new HIV infections in America. Since there is no valid reason to block heterosexuals from blood donation based on these numbers, and the activities of heterosexuals, then there is no valid reason to deny gays. It’s simply another baseless discrimination.
We live in a democratic country where all are intended to be treated equally. I applaud New York’s new same sex law and the destruction of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Gay rights and equality has taken far too long to be realized already. It is overdue that all Americans are treated equally and I’m looking forward to the day when it becomes a nationwide law … which can’t come fast enough!
Michelle Hall
Everett
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