Bio-ethicists address gay blood donor hearings

This media release was issued by the TGLRG on 13.8.08.

Two bio-ethicists today addressed the inquiry underway in Tasmania into gay blood donation.

Dr Scott Halpern and Dr Leslie Cannold gave evidence to the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal about ethical and epidemiological issues at stake in the case, including the right of potential blood recipients to a plentiful and safe blood supply and the onus of proof on the Red Cross to justify its gay exclusion policy.

Dr Halpern, who is a bio-ethicist and epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania and a consultant to the US Centre for Disease Control and the US Food and Drug Administration, put the claims of the Red Cross about "increased risk" from blood donation from gay men in perspective.

He noted that blood older than 15 days (which comprises at least 13% of the Australian supply) poses a risk of mortality "thousands of times greater" than the very worst predictions of HIV infection stemming from unsafe male-to-male sex.

Dr Cannold, a lecturer and researcher in bio-ethics at Melbourne and Monash Universities, labelled the epidemiological case put forward by some Red Cross witnesses "a straw man" because it assesses the risk associated with allowing all men who have sex with men to donate without taking into account a bar on those who have unsafe sex.

The gay blood donation case instigated by Launceston man, Michael Cain, began last Thursday and will continue until the end of this month.

Mr Cain is seeking a blood donation policy which screens donors for the safety of their sexual activity rather than the gender of their sexual partner.

The next witness will appear on Friday and further witnesses for both sides will appear next week.

Dr Cannold can be contacted on 0417 114 859 (Dr Halpern is in the US).

For more information contact Rodney Croome on 0409 010 668 or Michael Cain on 0400 734 798.

For more on gay blood donation visit www.gayblooddonation.org