More stupidity

We are, supposedly, the most intelligent species on the planet. Makes you despair doesn’t it. All around you encounter people whose acts and words are so mind numbingly stupid that you feel they should not be allowed out without a responsible adult. And this stupidity seems to be no impediment to attaining positions of authority and responsibility. Sometimes you have whole committees of such morons, such as The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood.

Until now gay people have been banned from giving blood because of the increased risk of HIV transmission. Undoubtedly some gay men do give blood, without admitting to being gay, but even so the risk of getting HIV from transfused blood in the UK is about 1 in two million, per unit of blood. Pretty long odds.

The committee have decided that such a ban is discriminatory and that it should be lifted, but only for gay men who declare that they have not had sex for ten years. Bloody hell, ten years. Can you see anyone, gay or straight, abstaining from sex for ten years so that they can get a free cup of tea and a biscuit?

The total elimination of risk is simply not possible. Gays may be more likely to get HIV but heterosexuals are not immune. Will the committee next insist that promiscuous heteros should also abstain for a similar period, after all there is nothing that gays do that can not also be done by a straight couple, I think.

The committee remind me of something once said by Einstein. “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe.”