Meat-based diets

At last, transfusion ban ended

Sir — I welcome the decision of the Minister for Health Simon Harris to end the lifelong ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men (MSM) on January 16 next year (‘Ban on gay men giving blood to end in new year’, Sunday Independent, October 2).

The decision by the minister to finally set a date, over three months after originally announcing his intentions in late June, means I may now see the overdue changes I have fought for the past number of years.

Over the years I had written to the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and a number of Oireachtas members, from the Taoiseach to the Health Minister and opposition leaders, seeking clarity on the MSM blood donation ban. No logical clarity could be provided to justify the arbitrary ban. As a result, and in the face of no real prospect of a timely change in policy, I initiated a judicial review case in the High Court in July 2015. The case put considerable pressure on the minister and others to bring in a change to the 30-yearold blanket ban.

I also note the line in last week’s report: “Once restrictions are lifted, gay men will be able to donate . . . five years after being cleared of a sexually transmitted disease.” As I understand it this second new policy will apply to everyone who donates blood, not merely gay men or those within the MSM category.

Although the new 12-month blanket deferral on MSM is far from perfect and still presents an unnecessary and unscientific form of institutional discrimination against healthy and safe blood donors, it is a welcome first step forward.

As a healthy blood donor with a clear dedication to donating safe and much-needed blood, I now keenly look forward to returning to the blood donation clinic in D’Olier Street in Dublin on January 16 for my 11th blood donation. Tomás Heneghan Co. Galway

Sir — I found Letter of Week (Sunday Independent, October 9) somewhat contradictory. The unfortunate beast is the loser either side of the argument.

The animal has to be slaughtered, in the first place, before being processed to satisfy the taste buds of people in ‘the affluent west’. Likewise, if the same people went vegetarian, as Ms. Nuala Donlon suggests, our four-legged friends would still have to die to alleviate the hunger of the 840 million humans that are going hungry.

Neither suggestion complies in any way with Mary Robinson’s comments on meat-based diets and global warning.

If animals were to become extinct —how then would the millions of landowners in livestock production survive, similarly the grain grower? James Gleeson, Thurles, Co.Tipperary.