Larry Cruz51 said:then getting someone else's blood really is like playing the lottery...
I mean, look, it’s not exactly how you put it.
The odds of someone actually donating blood during that specific window in a country where we've only had a few hundred registered AIDS cases so far—well, it’s not exactly a huge risk...
a) there's really no point in saving it since most of the meds have to be used within about 10 days anyway 2) you wouldn't even see any antibodies because the blood isn't actually producing them.
Alright, look, you guys clearly aren't getting it—what else can I even say?
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure why you're even asking me this...
Here’s how the whole thing works:
So, we've got Stef, who sleeps with Petrov—who's HIV-positive—and ends up catching the virus himself. About 15 days later, he goes to donate blood. During the immediate screening, the test won't actually pick up any HIV antibodies yet—let's not get bogged down in antigen testing, because let's be real, those probably aren't even being used here—even though Stef is officially HIV-positive and his blood carries enough of a viral load to infect anyone receiving a transfusion.
Now, we're looking at two totally different scenarios here: we have Stef walking around infected, and then we have his blood, which gets processed into various components for transfusions later on. Most people don't realize that you almost never just give someone whole blood exactly as it was taken from the donor—unless it's some extreme emergency, you're actually not even supposed to do that.
Stef is out there walking around with a normal body temp, his immune system is running at 100 miles per hour, fighting the virus with everything it's got, cranking out hundreds of thousands of antibodies...
But the blood? It's sitting separately, stored in refrigerators at all sorts of different temperatures. Some components have to be used within five days, while plasma can sit for up to a year at -35°F. In THAT kind of environment, antibodies just don't develop!!!
Does that make more sense now?
Disclaimer: if I messed anything up, it wasn't on purpose. I'm doing my best to explain what's happening, but since I'm not some medical expert—just an interested idiot—I might have gotten something wrong. Don't go getting mad at me if I did...
Larry Cruz51 said:it takes 3-4 months from donation to transfusion
I think you misunderstood what I was getting at.
That won't save anyone—nothing changes just because the blood sits there for 3 or 4 months... nothing.
What we're talking about is the window between someone actually catching the infection and the moment their body produces enough antibodies for an HIV test to catch it. So, if someone gets infected in April, by May, their blood might still show as negative even though the virus is there.
How long that blood stays on a shelf before it’s used doesn't change the math at all, because a) they aren't going to re-test it all over again b) and even if they did, the virus isn't going to suddenly multiply and trigger an antibody response while sitting in a bag—that can't happen once it's out of the human body.
Chloe Garcia98 said:Why can't someone be both an expert and actually approachable? Since when does one rule out the other?
Of course they can.
The real issue is dealing with people who aren't either...
Most folks here in the States tend to pick friendliness over actual competence.
Like, they'll say, "Oh, my doctor is such a sweetheart, she always asks how my neighbor's dog is doing!"—but honestly, her being a nice person doesn't mean a thing if she's totally unqualified and misses something huge...🙄
brisknomad said:if they had just looked at her hand right away when she arrived and realized it was a reaction to the sting, Kimberly Wright wouldn't have spent the whole day wandering around town—she wouldn't have been torn apart by everyone and sent straight to the Vineyard...
You know what? I'm not so sure about that.
I don't want to come across as mean toward Kimberly Wright—honestly, I don't really have a horse in that race—but I'm worried that even if they told her the truth over at Oakwood (a place I wouldn't visit even if a heart attack hit me in their parking lot), she and her boyfriend wouldn't believe them anyway. They'd probably just keep hunting for a doctor who would actually *do* something.
Kimberly Wright, please set me straight if I've got this wrong.
Jane Doe said:If I can jump in here—people were totally dogpiling on Jane Doe just because it’s basically the trend on this forum to jump on someone by default... 🙄
And she’s honestly just a little angel—she didn't do a single thing to deserve any of this... 😁
😍
Don't you ever forget who your biggest fan was here—the one who actually started your thread and kept pushing you to write more... right up until you went just a little bit overboard...
At the start, none of us actually knew what we were dealing with—and honestly, people just went after Rachel Brooks63 because she’s got a sharp tongue, not even because of this specific mess.
If Kimberly Wright had just laid out the facts from the get-go instead of getting all caught up in theorizing about "rights" and fighting for them... well, half of this whole debate wouldn't even be happening...
Look, let's stop with all the "what ifs." Honestly, what you and I are speculating about right now doesn't really matter... Let's just wait until Kimberly Wright can tell us what the actual diagnosis was. All we know for sure is that there was a two-day gap between the sting and the injection...
Kimberly Wright said:we ended up at George's clinic where the doctor on call was actually super chill about everything. the whole thing was wrapped up in like half an hour—he just got a shot, a prescription, and we headed home feeling like normal people...
so what did they actually end up diagnosing him with?
and honestly, what would've happened if your boyfriend had just waited another 20 hours or so and gone to his regular family doctor instead?...
Kimberly Wright, why don't you just tell us what actually happened?
I mean, this whole theoretical breakdown doesn't really help the conversation at all—it's just fueling more speculation and petty arguments, kind of like the one happening right now between that blowhard and Susan Martin24...
Susan Martin24 said:I think the only real, definitive factors for donors right now are their current health status—determined via an on-site exam—and their lab results 👍
But how would they lower the risk of someone being in a window period? You know, when blood work doesn't show an infection for some serious illness yet—like HIV or Hep C?
disclaimer: I'm not attacking you or anything. Just thinking maybe you have an idea that isn't clicking for me...
I went ahead and wiped a few posts from Lisa Gonzalez and Susan Martin24 (look, I see you both are pretty annoyed about it, and honestly, that’s fair).
The whole point here isn't to get into a back-and-forth about who's being arrogant or who's allowed to ask what... it's actually about how and where someone can access emergency medical care...
So, if you have something actual to say regarding that, go for it. But please—keep the personal bickering to the DMs (that's what they're there for, after all).
Susan Martin24, I was pretty clear when I used the term "potential jerk." And yeah, you absolutely have freedom of speech—as long as you're playing by the rules of the platform where you're exercising it...