bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (11/21/86)
From: ark@alice.UUCP >The obvious response to a policy of giving the government names >of blood donors who test positive for HIV, etc. is simply to stop >donating blood. If enough people do this, the policy will change. I thought the point was that blood which was not "donated" was being tested also, I presume what they meant was that if I go in for a test for, oh I dunno, diabetes (blood sugar) that they'll test a portion of my blood for HIV and, if positive, send that result to some bureaucrat who will make sure only the wrong people will have access to that information. Could someone clarify? I remember the specific point in the original article that it included blood not destined for the donor pool, or did you (ark) just mean to boycott blood donation destined for the donor pool as a political statement (not unreasonable, but perhaps a little harder to organize.) Of course there is a "cutting off one's nose" factor in that, could be a lot of loss of blood... -Barry Shein, Boston University
ark@alice.UUCP (11/21/86)
In article <2569@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bzs@bu-cs.UUCP writes: > > From: ark@alice.UUCP > >The obvious response to a policy of giving the government names > >of blood donors who test positive for HIV, etc. is simply to stop > >donating blood. If enough people do this, the policy will change. > > I thought the point was that blood which was not "donated" was being > tested also, I presume what they meant was that if I go in for a test > for, oh I dunno, diabetes (blood sugar) that they'll test a portion of > my blood for HIV and, if positive, send that result to some bureaucrat > who will make sure only the wrong people will have access to that > information. No, I don't think that was the point of the original article. Remember that the article discussed the Red Cross, which, so far as I know, basically collects blood for later use in surgery, etc. Of course (and this may be relevant), I believe that many states have laws that anyone who is admitted to a hospital for any reason must have a blood test for syphillis, etc. I suspect it's only a matter of time before HIV testing is similarly required as well.