Nutbag Homophones Strike Again: FDA Proposes to Ban Gay Sperm Donors

Just when you think you've heard it all, heard every way a homosexual can be degraded and discriminated against in this country, along comes this filth:

New Rules to Bar Gay Men as Anonymous Sperm Donors

NEW YORK (May 6) - To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man
who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

The FDA has rejected calls to scrap the provision, insisting that gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of carrying the AIDS virus. Critics accuse the FDA of stigmatizing all gay men rather than adopting a
screening process that focuses on high-risk sexual behavior by any
would-be donor, gay or straight.

"Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with
HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he's been celibate for five years,'' said Leland Traiman, director of a clinic in Alameda, Calif., that seeks gay sperm donors.

Traiman said adequate safety assurances can be provided by testing a sperm
donor at the time of the initial donation, then freezing the sperm for a six-month quarantine and testing the donor again to be sure there is no new sign of HIV or other infectious diseases.

But it is the provision's symbolic aspect that particularly troubles gay-rights groups. Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, has called it "policy based on bigotry.''

"The part I find most offensive - and a little frightening - is that it isn't based on good science,'' Cathcart said. "There's a steadily increasing trend of heterosexual transmission of HIV, and yet the FDA still has this notion that you protect people by putting gay men out of the pool.''

In a letter to the FDA, Lambda Legal has suggested a screening procedure based on sexual behavior, not sexual orientation. Prospective donors - gay or straight - would be rejected if they had engaged in unprotected sex in the previous 12 months with an HIV-positive person, an illegal drug user, or "an individual of unknown HIV status outside of a monogamous relationship.''

But an FDA spokeswoman cited FDA documents suggesting that officials felt the broader exclusion was prudent even if it affected gay men who practice safe sex.

Many doctors and fertility clinics already have been rejecting gay sperm donors, citing the pending FDA rules or existing regulations of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

However, some sperm banks, notably in California, have welcomed gay donors. The director of one of them, Alice Ruby of the Oakland-based Sperm Bank of California, said her staff had developed procedures for identifying gay men with an acceptably low risk of HIV.

The FDA rules do not prohibit gay men from serving as "directed'' sperm donors. If a woman wishing to become pregnant knows a gay man and asks that he provide sperm for artificial insemination, a clinic could provide that service even if the man had engaged in sex with other men within five years.

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Under the Bush regime, even the FDA has foregone science in the name of discrimination, homophobia and questionable morals. It is a sad, sad day indeed. Shame on the FDA, and on any sperm bank that uses this "policy" to blacklist homosexuals. Geez, you'd think this was 1985, not 2005, with all this "gay men are a higher risk, even if they are monogamous" crappola....