Oh, (Health) Canada

Over the past month or so, Health Canada has had to make some clarifications about an organ donor ban targeted at sexually active gay men. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada’s HIV/AIDS Epi Updates (2007), about 50% of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is attributed to men who have sex with men (MSM). Another 30% is attributed to individuals who contract the virus through heterosexual contact and other means (excluding intravenous drug use). I’m not sure what the percentages of homosexual males who have contracted HIV/AIDS from MSM transmission, and I am not sure if there are any accurate statistics available on this subject. In any case, Health Canada’s organ donor restriction is a poor risk management strategy. Health Canada has targeted the ‘high risk population’ of sexually active gay men, which is essentially a discriminatory policy. There are other means to solve this problem; a notable solution would be additional screening procedures for organ donors. Mandatory HIV/AIDS tests would work as efficiently as this restriction, and would not be accompanied with controversy.

The restriction also targeted injection drug users (IDU). I find no reason why this aspect of the restriction should be contested. A rational justification for this regulation is that other forms of bloodborne disesases can be transmitted through IDUs.