OPINION:
After years of lobbying by homosexual activists, the Obama administration, via the Food and Drug Administration, is trying to sneak an irrational and irresponsible policy change by the public. (Perhaps it is hoping that we have been so preoccupied with Christmas shopping, we won’t notice.) The FDA has just lifted its lifetime ban on homosexual and bisexual men donating blood — despite the well-known fact that such individuals spread diseases such as AIDS, syphillis and hepatitis C at much higher rates than do heterosexuals (“FDA lets gay men donate blood if abstinent for at least 1 year,” Web, Dec. 21).
According to the Centers for Disease Control, homosexual and bisexual individuals spread AIDS at a rate that is about 44 times higher than that of heterosexuals. Since the blood tests that scientists use to keep the blood supply uninfected aren’t perfect, this policy change will likely result in a slight increase in the number of innocent people who contract AIDS and other very serious diseases via tainted blood. Evidently government bureaucrats don’t care about these innocents.
Also, if lifting the ban results in more tainted blood being donated, money will be spent on costly testing of tainted blood that then has to be thrown out, and money also will have to be spent on disposing of that tainted blood in an environmentally safe way. This move seems like a ridiculously wasteful way to spend taxpayers’ money. Then again, with Obama ideology takes precedence over common sense. The next president should reinstate the justifiable ban.
WAYNE LELA
Downers Grove, Ill.
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