Should Terrorism Victims Be Put at More Risk?

They’re already fighting for life. Why give them a deadly disease?

Unbelievably, after the Orlando terror attack, some science news sites want to put the survivors at more risk. Jay Silverstein at PLoS Blogs (see Medical Xpress) favors lifting the ban on blood donations from sexually active gay men, even though he knows they are the highest risk group for spreading the AIDS virus. His reasons have little to do with helping the victims as much as not “discriminating” against a group that wants to donate blood.

Mindy Waisgerber at Live Science asks, “Orlando Shooting: Should Curbs on Blood Donations from Gay Men Be Lifted?” Her article is more matter-of-fact, yet leans strongly toward lifting the ban. Her main evidential reason is that Italy has not seen an increase in transfusion-based transmission of HIV despite no ban on the practice. Her main pragmatic argument is that it would increase the pool of available blood. Since practicing gay men represent only 2% or so of the population, though, it seems only a small increase would result, while jeopardizing the recipients.

Should medicine play Russian roulette with patients? What happened to “do no harm”?

Political correctness is destroying this country. Sensible citizens need to speak out.