Tattoos and blood donations

skorn

planning on getting tattooed for the first time soon (back of neck and wrist - topside not veinside).
Anyway someone mentioned that they heard that after getting a tattoo you can't donate blood.
Is this true?
Is it only a temporary "ban"?
Or it it just "bull"?

Walbert

I think you can't donate for up to 6 months... Its defo not a permanent thing.

SaladFingers

I was told that you cant ever donate after getting a tattoo, which is a shame cos i've always wanted to donate blood, but it looks like its just bullpoo now.

Cindy Love

Hi,

Almost positive that you can never donate blood.

And whats even more fcuked up is that if your gay you cant donate either...read that before in an article. Whats stupid is you could easily walk in and be a gay tattooed person and what can they do to prove you wrong but ask you! This country is so fcukin backward its not even funny. :mad:

munky

You can donate blood 12 months after getting a tattoo.
Gay men can't donate because they are high risk groups, it would cost far too much to check every gay man(not that I'm saying gay men are infected, just more at risk) and would infact add strain to the blood donation service, so they are excluded.
The chances are that if you decent enough to donate blood your not gonna be a dick and lie(unless your doing it unpurpuse which is ****ed up!)

porn_star

it varys from place to place, as far as I know. most is between six to 12 months.
It was being discussed in the qod section of bme recently..
I don't think that you can never donate blood again, but theres something of having so many tattoos or being heavily tattooed, which puts you in the high risk catergory. which means you cant then.

Shiminay

12 months in Ireland - I got caught with it myself - sat to give blood and was reading the leaflet after waiting for a couple of hours only to remember my tattoo was 7 months old. Nurses were all worried when I was leaving early and wondering why, so I just rolled up the sleeve and they laughed

Reku

Might want to recheck that info:

bedlam wrote:

You should never donate blood if you are in one of the following groups:
...
* You have received a blood transfusion in the Republic of Ireland since 1 January 1980.

You should not donate blood for 12 months if:
...
* You received a blood transfusion.

Hmm, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, you can donate after 12 months but only if the donation was pre-1980... Stupid Irish government website...
http://oasis.gov.ie/health/blood_donation.html (pretty sure this is where he/she got it)



And it is 6 months not 12!

http://www.ibts.ie/generic.cfm?mID=2&sID=79

Never give blood if:

You have received a blood transfusion (other than an autologous transfusion) in the Republic of Ireland on or after the 1st January 1980
You received a blood transfusion (other than an autologous transfusion) outside the Republic of Ireland at anytime
You have spent 1 year or more, in total, in the UK in the years 1980 to 1996
You are a male who has ever had anal or oral sex with another male, even if a condom or other form of protection was used
You have ever used a needle to take unprescribed drugs, this includes body building drugs
You or your partner is HIV positive
You have had jaundice of uncertain cause after the age of 13 years
You have had hepatitis B or C


Do not donate blood for 12 months after:

You have visited a malarial area
You were pregnant or gave birth to a baby
You received an autologous blood transfusion

Do not give blood for 6 months after:

You have had major surgery
You have visited a tropical area
You have had any part of your body pierced
You have had a tattoo
You received acupuncture (acupuncture performed by a doctor, nurse or physiotherapist may be acceptable, please contact us for details)
You had an endoscopy

Do not give blood for 2 months after:

You have visited the United States of America, Canada, Cuba, Mexico or Israel, because of the possibility of onward transmission of West Nile Virus via blood transfusion

Do not give blood for 1 month after:

You have had contact with infectious diseases (where you have not previously been infected) e.g. chicken pox, mumps, measles or German measles

Do not give blood for two weeks after:

You have recovered from the 'flu

Do not give blood for one week after:

You have had a dental extraction
You have completed a course of antibiotics

Do not give blood for 24 hours after:

You have had an uncomplicated dental filling or scaling

Do not give blood until you have recovered after:

A cold or cold sore

damien

munky wrote:

it would cost far too much to check every gay man(not that I'm saying gay men are infected, just more at risk) and would infact add strain to the blood donation service, so they are excluded.

That's not true at all. They are higher risk yes but all blood gets tested anyway for the exact same things after donation. There is a window of 5-10 days from infection to detection on a standard HIV test and after that HIV can be detected.

The cost of a HIV test is negligible compared to the collecting and processing of one pint of blood. Unfortunately the IBTS is happy to propogate those myths.

Reku

To be honest I'm surprised the IBTS hasn't been sued over such blatant discrimination, last I heard heterosexuals were fast catching up on gays in terms of STDs, and I thought we'd long since passed them out for HIV/AIDS. While perhaps I'm thinking in terms of raw numbers as opposed to percentage of the grouping it shouldn't matter, you'll probably have some homophobes worried about getting gay blood but that's up to those idiots, either way gay people should be allowed to give blood if they so wish, just like everyone else. As long as the blood is tested how can it really do anyone any harm? Heck I'd be more worried about getting a tested woman's blood with the miniscule amount of oestrogen than a tested gay's blood.
What's next, you can't give blood if you're from a low income background since they're more likely to practice unprotected sex (check figures for teen pregnancy)? This is just stupidity, of which the Irish goverment, and state organisations, seems to be guilty of far too often.

skorn

thanks for all the replies

another question then:
if I give blood - how long do I have to wait before getting a tattoo ?

Gandhi

Anyone know the reason for the "one year in the UK" restriction? They have the same one here in the US - which is why I can't give blood. Is is something to do with Mad Cow disease?

Degsy

farohar wrote:

To be honest I'm surprised the IBTS hasn't been sued over such blatant discrimination, last I heard heterosexuals were fast catching up on gays in terms of STDs, and I thought we'd long since passed them out for HIV/AIDS. While perhaps I'm thinking in terms of raw numbers as opposed to percentage of the grouping it shouldn't matter, you'll probably have some homophobes worried about getting gay blood but that's up to those idiots, either way gay people should be allowed to give blood if they so wish, just like everyone else. As long as the blood is tested how can it really do anyone any harm? Heck I'd be more worried about getting a tested woman's blood with the miniscule amount of oestrogen than a tested gay's blood.
What's next, you can't give blood if you're from a low income background since they're more likely to practice unprotected sex (check figures for teen pregnancy)? This is just stupidity, of which the Irish goverment, and state organisations, seems to be guilty of far too often.

Its the way it is,high risk groups are banned from donating blood in order to curb the spread of HIV,its not a homophobic statement "straight" people are covered as well IF they conform to a pattern of behaviour which is known to contribute to the spreading of AIDS.Would you be so right-on if there were no strictures in place and you caught HIV from infected blood?

dizzybunny

ive donated blood in the last month, it is 6 months for a tattoo or a piercing before u can donate blood. it used to be 12 months untill recently.

Reku

Degsy wrote:

Its the way it is,high risk groups are banned from donating blood in order to curb the spread of HIV,its not a homophobic statement "straight" people are covered as well IF they conform to a pattern of behaviour which is known to contribute to the spreading of AIDS.Would you be so right-on if there were no strictures in place and you caught HIV from infected blood?

You are a male who has ever had anal or oral sex with another male, even if a condom or other form of protection was used

And yet there's nothing about being a heterosexula who:
(a) has engaged in sex without a condom
(b) engaged in a one night stand
(c) paid for sex/been paid for sex

High risk groups my ass!
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:WgRbYN8zsWAJ:www.acia-uk.org/hiv_global_statistics.doc+aids+hiv+heterosexual+world+statistics&hl=en

More than 70% of all HIV infections worldwide occur through heterosexual sex. Where this is the main form of transmission, women are becoming infected in far greater numbers than men. Women over the age of 15 constitute almost 45% of all newly reported AIDS cases worldwide, making them the fastest growing group diagnosed.

While when you consider that the last statistic I'd heard for it was the ~5% of the european population consider themselves to be homosexual it does mean that statistically you're more likely to have aids if gay, with 70% of people infected AIDS/HIV being heterosexual there'll be far more positive tests from the heterosexual donors than the homosexual.

Heck, now that I look at it

You received a blood transfusion (other than an autologous transfusion) outside the Republic of Ireland at anytime

leaves them open to a discrimination suit from foreign nationals.
In this happy-go-lucky-I'll-sue-you-if-I-don't-like-the-way-you-looked-at-me culture you'd think they'd cop on and be more careful about appearing to discriminate.

And if it truely were to curb the spread of HIV, then since rejecting these high risk groups is prevents them getting HIV infected blood according to you why do they test the blood for HIV? If the tests are in any way accurate then being high risk should still allow them to determine if your blood is safe or not.

TouchingVirus

Wow..even without my tat's i just saw i can't ever give blood..damn jaundice...that sucks majorly!!

damien

Degsy wrote:

its not a homophobic statement "straight" people are covered as well IF they conform to a pattern of behaviour which is known to contribute to the spreading of AIDS.

Well yeah it is. Man who has protected sex with bisexual man - banned for life. Woman who has unprotected vaginal and anal sex with same bisexual man - no ban.

Man who has protected sex with a man - lifetime ban. Woman who has unprotected sex with dozens of people - no ban. Man who has oral sex with another man, even with a condom! - banned for life.

BTW, if you don't think they are homophobic then why have they said that one reason why gay men are banned is because since they were first to get HIV then they may in the future get some other unknown and undetectable virus, so it is best to ban them. In their own words:

HIV in the West appeared first among gay men in the eighties and had spread widely in the gay community before the nature of the threat was appreciated or understood. This indicates that men who have sex with men may constitute one route in the future through which a new disease, transmissible by blood transfusions, could find its way into the community before it is detectable

damien

Gandhi wrote:

Is is something to do with Mad Cow disease?

Yes.