GUILTY ACTOR: THE CANADIAN RED CROSS
The Tainted Blood Scandal was used as further justification of the deferral even though the fault for this blood error was the Canadian Red Cross’ for remaining in denial and failing to disclose possible effects of Factor VIII to hemophiliacs. Hemophiliacs rely on blood transfusion to assist their blood in clotting. In 1984, it was believed that the heat-treating Factor VIII, a plasma component, would be beneficial to kill viruses, and the federal government recommended that the Red Cross switch over immediately. Instead, the Red Cross deferred action for six months, and hemophiliacs would have resorted to taking blood products that could be tainted. The Red Cross justidied the six month deferral because …show more content…
This policy reduces the five-year deferral given new science provided by CBS and Hema-Quebec, which argues MSM blood is ‘safe’ after a one-year waiting period. This policy change brings Canada’s policy more in line with other Western nations. However, this policy maintains a deferral based on sexual orientation, not behaviour and does not allow for safe sex, monogamous homosexual men to donate …show more content…
This false sense of superiority allows them to ignore their own faults and mistakes and justifies their decision-making.
Supremacy Ideology reinforces this policy as it was born out of the GRID crisis where lawmakers determined that only gay men were the ones that were diseased and thus, were socially scapegoated. Supremacy Ideology permeates the policy through heterosexual privilege. Because lawmakers had a minority group to blame and politicize, they did not examine the (perhaps) unsafe sex practices of “straights.” They did not and do not limit heterosexual men with multiple partners from donating blood, yet they do for gay men. To illustrate the contradiction, Dr. Mark Wainberg, a professor of medicine at McGill University,
The Tainted Blood Scandal was used as further justification of the deferral even though the fault for this blood error was the Canadian Red Cross’ for remaining in denial and failing to disclose possible effects of Factor VIII to hemophiliacs. Hemophiliacs rely on blood transfusion to assist their blood in clotting. In 1984, it was believed that the heat-treating Factor VIII, a plasma component, would be beneficial to kill viruses, and the federal government recommended that the Red Cross switch over immediately. Instead, the Red Cross deferred action for six months, and hemophiliacs would have resorted to taking blood products that could be tainted. The Red Cross justidied the six month deferral because …show more content…
This policy reduces the five-year deferral given new science provided by CBS and Hema-Quebec, which argues MSM blood is ‘safe’ after a one-year waiting period. This policy change brings Canada’s policy more in line with other Western nations. However, this policy maintains a deferral based on sexual orientation, not behaviour and does not allow for safe sex, monogamous homosexual men to donate …show more content…
This false sense of superiority allows them to ignore their own faults and mistakes and justifies their decision-making.
Supremacy Ideology reinforces this policy as it was born out of the GRID crisis where lawmakers determined that only gay men were the ones that were diseased and thus, were socially scapegoated. Supremacy Ideology permeates the policy through heterosexual privilege. Because lawmakers had a minority group to blame and politicize, they did not examine the (perhaps) unsafe sex practices of “straights.” They did not and do not limit heterosexual men with multiple partners from donating blood, yet they do for gay men. To illustrate the contradiction, Dr. Mark Wainberg, a professor of medicine at McGill University,