But ooh, please do. (Though, if you want to be realistic, Neal in particular would never be allowed to donate since he spent time in prison. Unless he lied, which of course Neal would NEVER do. ;))
...huh, that's a rule in the US? I totally didn't know that! Is there a specific reason for that given?
I'm pretty amused by the whole thing now, at the time I was pretty embarrassed :P But also really interested in cataloguing exactly what my body was doing to me, because I am a massive dork XD
AFAIK all the major blood banks in the US don't allow donations EVER from certain populations that are considered to be at higher risk for HIV, including people who've spent more than a couple days in jail/prison since the late 70s, men who've had sex with men since the late 70's, and people who spent time in certain countries like Haiti. I don't think it's fair, but they ask the questions and to donate anybody in those categories would have to lie, generally verbally not on paper.
Yeah, having served jail time doesn't come into it in the UK, which is also in the process of (slowly) allowing gay men to give blood, since they've belatedly realised that their risk factor for HIV isn't actually any higher than that of exclusively straight-partnered people. (I think currently the rule is if you're a man you can't have had sex with another man within the last 12 months, and if you're a woman you can't have had sex with that man in the last 12 months. Don't quote me, though.) There's also all the stuff about can't have had tattoos/piercings in the last year, can't have *injected* illegal drugs ever. And there's also a time limit from having visited certain countries and being vaccinated.
/infodump
(I kind of still want to write that fic, though, lol :P)
The rest of it sounds similar to here. Actually, I just looked and there seems to be some variation when it comes to the prison thing--some places may just defer people for a year but in my state it appears to be a permanent deferral.
Aha, I found criteria for New York! No mention of prison there (although good to know tattoo parlours in NJ could never harbour hep. strains :S), so it's just down to interpretations of Neal's sexuality :P
I'm just randomly popping in here - in Austria you are (at least I think since they ask for it on the sheets) excluded from donating if you spent more than 6 months in the UK in the (I think) 90's due to BSE and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
And the same ban on men having had sex with an other man within the last 12 months. Can't remember if there is the same question for women though.
Actually, I feel I want to write a second comment to register how much I hate governmental systems that basically regard prison rape as an expected part of jail time, and actively advertise it as part of the "deterrent" of prison (and I also dislike it when the good guys do this on cop shows) rather than doing something about this massive systemic human rights abuse.
(This is totally not aimed at you, it's a general feeling of mine.)
THIS. Prison is supposed to be about deterrence, yes--but that's the loss of freedom part, not an introduction to torture. I'd like to think that if a prisoner / inmate complained about sexual abuse, something would be done--but I am not naive enough to think that this is reality.
(In my world, despite having written it, Neal comes out of prison completely unscathed, except by boredom and loneliness, and fashion issues.)
Especially given the amount of people who end up in prison for relatively minor things, such as possession charges, and the massive bias in which populations are way more likely to be prosecuted severely :/
But ooh, please do. (Though, if you want to be realistic, Neal in particular would never be allowed to donate since he spent time in prison. Unless he lied, which of course Neal would NEVER do. ;))
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I'm pretty amused by the whole thing now, at the time I was pretty embarrassed :P But also really interested in cataloguing exactly what my body was doing to me, because I am a massive dork XD
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/infodump
(I kind of still want to write that fic, though, lol :P)
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And the same ban on men having had sex with an other man within the last 12 months. Can't remember if there is the same question for women though.
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(This is totally not aimed at you, it's a general feeling of mine.)
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(In my world, despite having written it, Neal comes out of prison completely unscathed, except by boredom and loneliness, and fashion issues.)
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