4 gay and 1 straight men with HIV charged for donating blood

oxford mushroom SG

FIVE men infected with the HIV virus were brought before a district court yesterday for allegedly lying about their sexual history in questionnaires they completed before donating blood.

Their blood, none of which ever found its way to patients, tested positive for HIV.

Four of the five men are alleged to have lied when they declared on the form that they had never had sex with other men. Facing a single charge each under the Infectious Diseases Act are Ng Choon Siong, 21; Suhaidi Abas, 37; and Tan Yee Wee, 30.

The fourth man, 22-year-old Wong Shimin, faces two charges for making false declarations on two occasions, once in 2003 and once last year.It is understood that he did not test positive for the virus at that time.

The fifth man, Lua Bu Chung, 37, is accused of lying about his sexual history on one occasion. He is said to have lied when he declared that he had not had sex with more than one partner. In the same form, he also allegedly claimed in the previous year he had not had sex with anyone he had known for less than six months...

(Straits Times, 10 Nov)

[email protected] SG

i do wonder why these people want to donate blood? even if they dunno they got HIV, they should know they are not exactly monogamous, high risk group. If they want to do good deed, im sure they won’t lie on the form to begin with. Blood donation got give $ or not? No right? Wonder why they want to donate still.

hmsg SG

i am surprised at the publicity since it’s already so tough to get people to donate blood… they could hv not reveal the names…..

BillyBong SG

I doubt they had a heart of gold when they signed that form. Maybe they just wanted to share the gospel?

Oh well, it's good news that their blood was tested and quarrentined before infecting needy patients. After the fiasco of the viral kidney transplant, the medical sector cannot afford another relapse.

leddy SG

u rather have no donators than donators with infected blood

[email protected] SG

i doubt so too. well. all i can say is, if one is out to harm other deliberately, karma will get him/her sooner or later.

dragg SG

what purpose does it serve charging them?

i dont think money or jail term means anything to them anymore.

[email protected] SG

deterent to others with similiar intent. maybe. i think if they WERE malicious, they deserve some sort of punishment.

maggot SG

If they go around with needles of their blood poking people how? Shocked

Gablurr SG

http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2005/yax-509.htm

lwflee SG

Might it not be an honest mistake? IE They wanted to donate blood out of goodwill, and told a couple of white lies because they knew their blood would be tested anyway, and therefore thought that it didn't really matter. I am sure they are not the only ones to do that. After all sexual promiscuity still carries with it a stigma in Singapore.

My dad was a regular blood donator. I dunno how prmiscuous he is, but i am sure my mum would not be too happy to see him declare that he is a very promiscuous individual. He probably ticked the "only one sexual partner" box.

Edit: Just read the yawning bread article. The writer put it in words better than i ever could have.

dragg SG

hahaha.

nothing is detterent enough to people facing death.

oxford mushroom SG

There is a window period within which the tests cannot pick up the presence of the virus, so people have been infected despite testing of blood samples.

Salman SG

Everybody knows very well the implications of donating blood samples with HIV. We do need to punish people who donate HIV blood.

BillyBong SG

The writer wrote a pretty strong view on white lies and the blood donation system in SG. However, he has several points that are contentious. Below is one of them:

What this news story points to is how we have a social and legal climate that encourages people to lie, and then punishes them for so doing.

However a society's culture, ultimately, it is the person himself who signs the dotted line. A person who signs it falsely (and knowingly), cannot claim duress or ignorance when he stands before a judge, or that virtue was not convenient at that time.

Such excuses will not suffice.

lwflee SG

Even when they themselves do not know they are infected?

lwflee SG

Originally posted by BillyBong:
The writer wrote a pretty strong view on white lies and the blood donation system in SG. However, he has several points that are contentious. Below is one of them:

[b]What this news story points to is how we have a social and legal climate that encourages people to lie, and then punishes them for so doing.

However a society's culture, ultimately, it is the person himself who signs the dotted line. A person who signs it falsely (and knowingly), cannot claim duress or ignorance when he stands before a judge, or that virtue was not convenient at that time.

Such excuses will not suffice.[/b]

Duress is not an excuse for indicating consent? That is the first i have heard of that. In any case, this is not about duress. This is about blameworthiness. Is someone who tells a white lie in a situation such as the one we are discussing so blameworthy that the criminal law must be weilded to censure him?

I think not.

Someone made the point about the virus being undetectable for a certain period after infection. Lets say for eg that the period is sevesral weeks. If so, why not hold the samples in quarantine for several months? Surely it is illogical and irresponsible to rely on people telling the truth in order to weed out such cases?

IE Virus may remain undetectable for weeks. - We quarantine the samples for months. -> Hence it is moot whether the doner lied about his sexual history.

BillyBong SG

My position of 'duress' comes from the writer's articlewhich indicates that society applies some form of peer pressure to its people. That people follow a certain 'norm' applied since day 1 because it is the nature of this society to do so.

If a person commits a crime under a death threat of his family, then surely that can be admissible in court and justified as 'duress'.

lwflee SG

I agree that it is somewhat absurd to suggest that peer or societal pressure could and should amount to duress. I was making a point about duress generally. In any case, that is moot since we appear to share similar views on that issue.

UandMe SG

believe it or not, a lot of people actually use blood donation as a way to find out if they are HIV positive or not... as they are afraid to go and test it at the clinics...