= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
bramflakes comments on Quantified Risks of Gay Male Sex - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (39)
While teaching a game theory class at Smith College I used an example that made mention of how blood banks didn't want donations from gay men. A student asked me why blood banks would do this and I said it was probably due to not being able to completely tell from screening if a donor has AIDS. My students then actually began debating among themselves whether gay men were more likely to have AIDS than heterosexual men were.
I once debated with myself whether I should donate blood given that I'd had sex with men before, but whom I was sure were HIV-negative. I did a quick Fermi estimate looking at the amount of contaminated blood samples the blood bank could expect nationally, first with only heterosexual donors, and then with heterosexual + homosexual donors, given that each blood sample underwent the most accurate HIV tests. The results were pretty staggering (order of magnitude difference).
That convinced me that the proscription was there for a very good reason and that I shouldn't violate it.