Urgent: Blood Donors Are Desprately Needed After Deadly Orlando Mass Shooting

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lenovox1

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Hundreds of Central Floridians, searching for a way to help the victims of the shooting spree at the Pulse nightclub, lined up to donate blood this morning at OneBlood.

OneBlood put out a call for the donations citing the shootings that killed 50 and injured 53 others.

OneBlood issued a news release calling for O negative, O positive and AB donors to donate as soon as possible -- preferably today. The blood agency said it was needed to aid the wounded.

To find a donation center or Big Red Bus near you visit www.oneblood.org or call 1.888.9Donate. As of midmorning, the site had crashed.
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Edit: Unlike what many news reports are saying, sexually active gay and bisexual men will not be allowed to donate. Eligibility requirements are listed here: http://redcrossblood.org/donating-b...nts/eligibility-criteria-alphabetical-listing (Correction from mreddie)

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...-shooting-blood-donations-20160612-story.html

Update:

Orlando Blood Banks Currently At Capacity; OneRed Urges Donors to Schedule Donations as More Blood Will Be Needed

Overelmed by people wanting to donate blood to victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, OneBlood asked donors to stop coming Sunday and schedule appointments over the next few days.

"I've been here 13 years and never seen a response like this," said Pat Michaels, a spokesman for OneBlood, as he revealed the blood centers were at capacity with walk-up donors.

"The sentiment is understood and appreciated, but it's a little too much, too soon," he said.

But the supply will need to be replenished, Michaels said.
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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...-shooting-blood-donations-20160612-story.html


(This is a spin-off of Mass shooting at Orlando gay nightclub [50 dead, 53 injured])
 
Good to see people answering the donor call.

People need to be aware that there is not enough blood in the blood banks :(
 
Wait...... News reports are saying if you're Gay, you can't donate blood? WTF...... It's not a disease.


Why would they say that?
 
ViciousDS said:
Wait...... News reports are saying if you're Gay, you can't donate blood? WTF...... It's not a disease.

Why would they say that?
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The medical community is terrified of another AIDs disaster. In the 80s, half of people with hemophilia in the United States were infected by HIV from blood donations.
 
ViciousDS said:
Wait...... News reports are saying if you're Gay, you can't donate blood? WTF...... It's not a disease.


Why would they say that?
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You must not live in the US, or have never paid attention to blood donation news before.

It's a long standing ban.

Being gay isn't a disease, but HIV sure as hell is.

(They have been discussing overturning this for quite some time though.)
 
Is it only okay for gays/bisexuals to donate blood temporarily, or is it just in the Orlando area? I thought maybe the policy had changed but I just checked Blood Centers of the Pacific's page (I'm in SF) and it still says "Do not donate if... You are a man who has had sex with another man since 1977."
 
MultiCore said:
You must not live in the US, or have never paid attention to blood donation news before.

It's a long standing ban.

Being gay isn't a disease, but HIV sure as hell is.

(They have been discussing overturning this for quite some time though.)
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I live in northern Illinois, we have blood drives where I work every 6 months. I don't really remember being a sexually active gay being top talk of the town. Than again we are talking about maybe a few hundred donors and they probably just get asked when they go up. I've never seen it be a topic of discussion.

But, correct I do not pay attention to blood news.
 
ephemeral garbage said:
Is it only okay for gays/bisexuals to donate blood temporarily, or is it just in the Orlando area? I thought maybe the policy had changed but I just checked Blood Centers of the Pacific's page (I'm in SF) and it still says "Do not donate if... You are a man who has had sex with another man since 1977."
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It's likely a temporary exemption for the area.
 
ViciousDS said:
Wait...... News reports are saying if you're Gay, you can't donate blood? WTF...... It's not a disease.


Why would they say that?
Click to expand...

MultiCore said:
You must not live in the US, or have never paid attention to blood donation news before.

It's a long standing ban.

Being gay isn't a disease, but HIV sure as hell is.

(They have been discussing overturning this for quite some time though.)
Click to expand...

Currently the same in Canada too, though I think steps are being made to change that. Was still part of the questionnaire when I donated yesterday up here. One could always lie about their sexuality to donate, but it's ridiculous they should have to
 
Pulka said:
People were scared of HIV/AIDS and still are.
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Well, the statistics do support the concern as HIV infection rates is alarmingly high among gay men vs. the rest of the population. From a public health perspective, you have to understand that. But....

ViciousDS said:
Don't most blood centers check it before using it anyways?
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All blood is screened, yes. So it is good that they are lifting the window period and ban here. I do think a further relaxation on the ban is needed in general too at this point.
 
ViciousDS said:
Don't most blood centers check it before using it anyways?
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The only test we have looks for HIV antibodies, but if the someone contracted the virus recently (3 months IIRC) they can be contagious but not be detectable. It's the same reason you should get tested again a few months after a suspicious sexual encounter.
 
Ri'Orius said:
The only test we have looks for HIV antibodies, but if the someone contracted the virus recently (3 months IIRC) they can be contagious but not be detectable. It's the same reason you should get tested again a few months after a suspicious sexual encounter.
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Technically, blood centers test for HIV RNA. But your point still stands. There can still be false negatives if the donor contracted HIV within about 10 days.
 
ViciousDS said:
Wait...... News reports are saying if you're Gay, you can't donate blood? WTF...... It's not a disease.


Why would they say that?
Click to expand...

Because. The gay community is mostly known for the spread of HIV.... Its not an unknown or made up or superstition. It's not a because you're "gay" it's just historically known that the partial or beginning spread of the HIV virus was by the gay community. I'm sure I will be judged now in Gaf.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_and_men_who_have_sex_with_men

Since reports of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) virus began to emerge in the United States in the 1980s, the HIV epidemic has frequently been linked to gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) by epidemiologists and medical professionals. The first official report on the virus was published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) on June 5, 1981 and detailed the cases of five young gay men who were hospitalised with serious infections.[1] A month later, The New York Times reported that 41 homosexuals had been diagnosed with Kaposi’s Sarcoma, and eight had died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.[2] By 1982, the condition was referred to in the medical community as GRID (Gay-related immune deficiency), "gay cancer," and "gay compromise syndrome."[3] It was not until July 1982 that AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) was suggested to replace GRID [4] and it was not until September that the CDC first used the AIDS acronym in an official report.[5]
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woodchuck said:
Technically, blood centers test for HIV RNA. But your point still stands. There can still be false negatives if the donor contracted HIV within about 10 days.
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Ri'Orius said:
The only test we have looks for HIV antibodies, but if the someone contracted the virus recently (3 months IIRC) they can be contagious but not be detectable. It's the same reason you should get tested again a few months after a suspicious sexual encounter.
Click to expand...



Ah, gotcha.
 
Ri'Orius said:
The only test we have looks for HIV antibodies, but if the someone contracted the virus recently (3 months IIRC) they can be contagious but not be detectable. It's the same reason you should get tested again a few months after a suspicious sexual encounter.
Click to expand...

do the stats say that active gay/bi men are significantly more likely to have HIV than any other demographic? Enough to ban them but not others? I thought HIV was a risk in all groups?
 
mrklaw said:
do the stats say that active gay/bi men are significantly more likely to have HIV than any other demographic? Enough to ban them but not others? I thought HIV was a risk in all groups?
Click to expand...

It's a greater risk in the gay/bisexual communities as anal sex is the riskiest form of intercourse.
 
I literally just found out that I can't donate blood because I was close to chernobyl when it went off.

Any truth to this?
 
TEJ said:
I literally just found out that I can't donate blood because I was close to chernobyl when it went off.

Any truth to this?
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I don't think so. You may be ineligible if you've spent a certain amount of time in certain European countries after 1980, but that's fear of transmitting Creutzfeldt-Jakob (mad cow) disease. From googling the Chernobyl deferral thing it sorta looks like people are conflating the two? Or maybe it's a question they only ask people in the region where it occured. I don't know. I do know that I donate blood regularly (most recently 2 weeks ago) and I've never seen any Chernobyl-associated questions on the donor questionnaire and google isn't finding any reliable sources saying it's a concern.
 
skullmuffins said:
I don't think so. You may be ineligible if you've spent a certain amount of time in certain European countries after 1980, but that's fear of transmitting Creutzfeldt-Jakob (mad cow) disease. From googling the Chernobyl deferral thing it sorta looks like people are conflating the two? Or maybe it's a question they only ask people in the region where it occured. I don't know. I do know that I donate blood regularly (most recently 2 weeks ago) and I've never seen any Chernobyl-associated questions on the donor questionnaire and google isn't finding any reliable sources saying it's a concern.
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Ok thanks.
 
Wow already at capacity! Incredible turnout. Of course the circumstances are terrible but the people in Orlando responded wonderfully by doing this so quickly. Hopefully it helps save some lives of the critically injured victims.
 
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