“The criteria across all of the UK Blood Services for accepting blood donors on the basis of virus risk are recommended to the Government by the Department of Health’s independent Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO). In order to assure the continued safety of the blood supply, the current policy is to ask those in groups shown to have a particularly high risk of carrying blood-borne viruses not to give blood. These include men who have ever had sex with men. The reason for this exclusion rests on specific sexual behaviour (such as anal and oral sex between men), rather than the sexuality of the person wishing to donate. There is, therefore, no exclusion of gay men who have never had sex with a man nor of women who have sex with women.”

The instrumental passage is the one which says: “There is … no exclusion of gay men who have never had sex with a man”.

And the reasoning behind this, which is not at all ridiculous, is that (as no doubt you know) there is a “window” after HIV infection during which the HIV virus is not detectable on testing, either during a routine test which you as a gay man might take for your own peace of mind, or when blood is routinely tested post-donation.

OK, you might ask why I am going to the trouble of making this comment. The answer: I don’t want other gay guys to be discouraged from offering their blood because of your misinformation. As Kirstie writes, there are few enough actual donors as it is, without losing other potentials because of a mistaken assumption.

I am 17 soon, which I believe is the required age to give blood, and after answering a few questions on their website, to see if I would be legible or not to give blood, I was astounded by the fact that gay men can not give blood! I myself am gay, and find it ridiculous that I’m not able to give blood just because of my sexual orientation. Some could say ‘well just don’t let them know’, but that is besides the point! We’re no different than heterosexual people, and carry the same risk of having A.I.D.S as any other group of people do!

So well done on signing up to become a blood donor – it’s such a great thing, and it’s not even an hour every 16 weeks out of your busy schedule. It’s going to help soo many people, and I am quite jealous that you and many others will be able to carry on the good work, and people like me will not be able to!

Rant over

Try to be less opinionated next time you review a piece of media.

I am a person who has always committed [or over-committed] to extra-curricular activites, and I had to chose which ones to mention, but so many people I know just made it all up!!

It is especially frustrating that people who chose to be ‘economical with the truth’ cannot necessarily be discovered to be lying because so few institutions offer interviews now.

I was quite stressed during the week of the internal deadline, and a lot of teachers were stressing to us about it all, and then when some students missed lessons to go and work on their UCAS applications the teachers looked miffed: ‘Why?? It’s only an internal deadline!’

Perhaps one day when I graduate with a good degree level from my chosen institution [Cardiff/Royal Holloway for Criminology and Sociology] I will think differently of the whole system, but for now, I think it is terrible!