My View on Organ Donation

On Monday, the story about Health Canada's new regulations for organ donation broke. CBC reported on the rules, which came into effect in December and prevent several high risk groups from donating. Included among these groups are injection drug users, people with tattoos, and any men who had sex with other men in the previous five years.

After reading the article, I went to CBC's Your View section to read some comments. As expected, there was a range of opinions, from outrage to blatant homophobia. What I found particularly troubling was the way people were misreporting, misinterpreting, misstating, and downright making up various numbers to try to back up their arguments. So, I set down to find some actual numbers and do some very rough calculations to try to interpret them. When I went to post my analysis, I discovered that they have a 2000-character limit. So, I broke it into two pieces and was able to post the first half. But, for whatever reason, the second half never appeared. I checked their Submissions Policy and found no restriction on multiple, related posts, so I tried submitting it again from another IP address, just in case they automatically screen out multiple submissions as a guard against spam. No dice, so I guess someone actually reviewed it and decided not to post it. Anyhow, the discussion is now closed, so I figured I'd just post it here...

First off, in response to the ridiculous non-statistics that have been bandied about, I'd like to offer some actual figures and back-of-envelope calculations.

2005 HIV Infection Numbers (from Health Canada):

58,000 HIV-infected people in Canada
29,600 are MSM (men who have sex with men)
2,250 are MSM-IDU (injecting drug users)

You'll notice that about 50% of HIV infected people in Canada are men who have had sex with men. Some people have inverted this claim and said that 50% of MSM are HIV-infected, which of course, is not at all the same thing. As we'll see in a moment, the real number is a tiny fraction of that.

Canada's population in 2005 was approximately 29,271,200. That's interpolated from the 2001 and 2006 census numbers (from Wikipedia: Canada).

I'll work on the assumption that 2.5% of the population are MSM. Of course, various studies have offered wildly differing figures, but I think it's reasonable to assume that 5% of men have had sex with men as a "consensus figure" for my rough estimations (from Wikipedia: Demographics of Sexual Orientation). Of course, I've halved that since I'm looking for the percentage of the population as a whole.

Using these figures, let's estimate HIV infections rates among...

MSM: 29600 / (0.025*29271200) = 0.040
MSM+ISU: (29600+2250) / (0.025*29271200) = 0.044
Non-MSM: (58000-29600 - 2250) / (0.975*29271200) = 0.00092

So, by my rough estimate, 4% of MSM are infected with HIV, compared to just under 0.1% of the rest of the population.

As a gay man, I find that pretty alarming. A man who has sex with men is more than 40 times more likely to be HIV+ than anyone else. The immediate reaction might be to take the steps that Health Canada has taken. But of course, a couple of statistics don't tell the whole story.

What you really have to look at is how small a risk those numbers actually represent. All donated tissues are tested, and those tests are considered to be highly effective, with false-negative rates of just 0.003% for HIV testing (from Wikipedia: Accuracy of HIV Testing). So, multiplying that out, we can estimate the chances that a donated organ that tests negative for HIV will actually carry the disease...

MSM: 0.04*0.003 = 0.00012
Non-MSM: 0.00092*0.003 = 0.00000276

Yes, that's right. A negative-testing organ from an MSM is "only" 99.988% safe, while a negative-testing organ from someone else is 99.999724% safe.

Now, given the choice, who wouldn't want the safer organ? But, of course, that's not the choice we face in reality. There is a chronic shortage of donated organs available and people are dying on the waiting lists. That's why those people in need of organs are willing to take that extra risk, as they expressed in their responses on the CBC's forum.

So, the appropriate question to ask is this: does the benefit of additional organ donations outweigh the increased risk of infection? My figures, while just estimates, suggest that it does, and by far. If we also apply the 2.5% MSM estimate to the pool of organ donors, then we can calculate the overall risk when they are included in the system:

Total: 0.025*0.00012 + 0.975*0.00000276 = 0.00000569

Removing this "high risk" 2.5% of the donor pool improves the safety of the system by a mere 0.000293%. The numbers strongly suggest that we're best served by maximizing the size of the donor pool and relying on existing, highly effective testing to identify unsafe organs. Even if these estimates are out by orders of magnitudes, how can the new regulation possibly be justified? Of course, if it had been debated in the open, we would be able to see and evaluate Health Canada's reasoning. But, I'd suggest, the way it was adopted in secret and announced a month later doesn't reflect well on that reasoning.

Gay and bisexual men may feel unduly targeted by this regulation, but we're not its real victims. Those people in need of organ transplants are.

Are You Smarter Than a Global TV Executive?

I just caught Collin Mochrie on the radio promoting a new show he's hosting on Global: Are You Smarter Than a Canadian 5th Grader, adapted from the American Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader, natch.

Okay, I have no issue with these limited-run adaptations in general. I don't think anyone honestly expects Global to come up with original Canadian programming ideas. All they do is air American shows anyway, so doing an occasional local version is a slight improvement, at least.

But this title is simply beyond the pale. Even if no one at Global noticed, surely one of the clever kids on set would have pointed out that, in Canada, we say grade five.

Idol-struck!

Last night was Madonnarama (apologies for the MySpace link) at Fly. That's right: all Madonna's music, all Madonna drag, all night! I was pretty excited, as was just about every other gay in Toronto, it seems. Doors opened at 10, we were there by 20 after, and we still had to stand in line for an hour. When we got in, the dance floor was already packed.

It was really a fun, if sticky, night. But, I found out, it wasn't just the gays who were there to revel in the music and aura of Madonna. Oh no, there was also a real-life diva among us.

None other than Melissa O'Neil, winner of Canadian Idol's third season. I was thrilled when Kevin told me he'd seen her there, as I adore her and I feel that embracing your gays is a key step towards divadom. When we saw her later, I went up, said hi, told her that I thought she's fantastic, and that I saw her concert at Massey Hall last year. All true, of course.

So yes, at this point, my inner 12-year-old girl had broken free and taken over. But Melissa was super cool: she put out her hand and asked if I wanted to come upstairs and dance. So, we hit the floor with her other gays and had a great time! Of course, everyone was singing along to all the songs they were playing, and it was just amazing to hear her powerful pipes up close!

Well, the details of how and when I left Fly are a little sketchy, but I'm still pretty excited about the whole experience today. Thanks Melissa for making this boy's night!

Montreal Pride in Facebook Mobile Status Updates

Divers/Cité was this weekend, which meant that 90% of Toronto's gay population, including me, was in Montreal. This also marked the first weekend that I truly embraced Facebook Mobile. So, I thought it might be fun to post the weekend's status updates, which also serve as a very sketchy, in-joke-laden record of the trip.

Friday, August 3

Dave is passing the big apple. Next stop: Kingston! (10:36am)
Dave is pretty sure that an average 12 year old has a larger bladder than he and Paul combined. (11:39am)
Dave is at Mado just wanting to have fun. (10:51pm)

Saturday, August 4

Dave is sipping a martini on the 25th floor, looking out over old Montreal. (7:46pm)

Sunday, August 5

Dave is surprised at how much the stairs hurt. (3:53am)
Dave is hoping Deanna will text him at 647-xxx-xxxx, since he forgot to bring her contact info to Montreal. (10:54am)

Monday, August 6

Dave is dancing at Sky Bar. Unity has a $30 cover and a longer line for refunds than to get in. No thanks! (1:45am)
Dave is sad that it's raining and his flight is delayed. (12:29pm)
Dave is enjoying watching red cars. (4:35pm)
Dave is flying home on the gayest flight in the history of aviation. (7:17pm)
Dave is home sweet home! (9:38pm)

A Brief Homecoming

My brief visit to BC is just about to end, as I'm at Vancouver International, waiting at the gate for my plane to board. I flew out here on Thursday and then went with Chris and Theresa to Nanaimo on Friday for Sam and Mike's wedding. I've been back in Vancouver since Sunday evening.

The wedding was fantastic. Mike's parents hosted the ceremony in their yard, overlooking the water. Sam looked fabulous. Mike, unsurprisingly, cried. And Sam gave quite the go-ahead-make-my-day look when we were asked if anyone knew of any reason why they should not be wed.

The reception was great, too. It began with the couple's first dance. This was not just a dance, it was a performance. Clearly, much instruction and choreography had gone into it, and apparently there was a strong desire to get it over with before dinner, which led to its unconventional placement on the program.

Speeches followed dinner, including what was quite possibly one of the best I have ever heard, delivered by Sam's brother Nick. Sam's "ring box", a shiny MacBook, then made an appearance to play the slide show and be the DJ, running an iTunes playlist that was determined by online vote, held in advance. The whole event was a great time.

Otherwise, the visit to Nanaimo was quite uneventful. It's a pretty town, but not all that exciting, and the locals, many of whom fit squarely in the retirement set, didn't prove to be the friendliest. The demographics took a dramatic turn for the better on Sunday morning, as the hotel was overrun by a young rugby team (or several teams?) visiting from England (or Australia?). Whatever the case, yum.

It was really great to get together again with Chris, Karyn, and Gippy and their (apparently very patient) significant others. Much laughter ensued as tired old jokes were resurrected and many new ones emerged.

My time in Vancouver was far too short, but enjoyable. I got together with Jodi and Karen for lunch yesterday, and then got to meet Jodi's pretty new kitties. And, in the evening, a special treat: I met up with Genevieve for a coffee and to catch up. We hadn't talked since high school grad, but had just reconnected through Facebook (thanks Facebook!). As it turned out, we each got to enjoy a free chai (thanks Starbucks!), and Gen was a riot.

She reminded me about how, after her final choir solo (which was self-accompanied on the guitar), I had congratulated her and said, "I didn't know you were talented." A perfectly typical foot-in-mouth moment for me, but fortunately she had taken it as intended.

Anyhow, she just got married, is teaching high school English, and is working on her Master's. Not that any of this was surprising, but it's nice to see that she's doing so well.

So, those are the highlights of my visit. I'll be back in Toronto in about five hours, and I'm already thinking about heading off to Montreal on Friday!

Island Play

Kevin and I left Toronto for PEI last Friday, with both bikes in tow on Kevin's fancy new hitch-attached bike rack. It was a two day drive, with a night in Quebec City.

The first day of driving was complicated by the first nations' national day of protest. An 80 km detour from the 401 slowed us down by two and a half hours, which then put us in Montreal for rush hour. It seems Montreal drivers really are as bad as everyone says: we were caught in no less than five different back-ups, all but one caused by a minor accident. It took two hours to cross the city on Autoroute 40. After twelve and a half hours of driving, we were definitely ready for bed.

The second day's driving went much more smoothly, and we were treated to some very nice scenery. The rolling hills of the Gaspé Peninsula and New Brunswick had me photographing madly. Sadly, these vast landscape scenes, beautiful as they are, just didn't translate well into photos, especially when taken from a speeding car.

Finally, we crossed the Confederation Bridge on Saturday evening.

Impressions of PEI in four words: everything is ridiculously cute. This applies to the landscape, the buildings, the bottled pop, the accents...and especially to Kevin's family.

Oh, one exception to the cuteness rule: the mosquitoes. They're nasty buggers, and I'm covered in bites. There are three particularly awful ones on my neck.

On Sunday, we saw the Canada Day fireworks in Charlottetown, which were billed as the biggest such display in the country. There were probably a couple of thousand people at the waterfront for it, which created some entertaining people watching opportunities. There were many cute grain-fed (potato-fed?) boys, too, but Kevin said they're 16, and have girlfriends and drinking problems.

The fireworks didn't disappoint. Neither did the T-shirt selection at Cows.

On Monday, we went with Kevin's sister Paulette, her husband Charlie, and their son Emery to the beach at Greenwich, in the PEI National Park. We enjoyed a nice long walk along the beach, and even helped Emery climb up the dunes, for which he seemed most grateful. The beach was long and beautiful, with white sand, gracefully curving to a point in the distance.

In the evening, we went back to Charlottetown to see Anne of Green Gables, the musical. It was, unsurprisingly, very cute. And really well performed, though all but a few of the actors seem to be "from away".

Kevin went on a long bike ride on Tuesday morning, and Paulette and I went to collect him at Tea Hill. Along the way, we stopped off at Subway to pick up some lunch (the new lobster sandwich: PEI only, or available everywhere?). Then, we walked along the beach. This one, though not as pretty as the last (which must be why this one was only a provincial park) did feature the famous PEI red sand. In the evening, we met up with Luke and Kevin's friends Amy, Kim, and Louis for dinner in Summerside. Then, we tore up the town. As Luke put it, we climbed two relatively sketchy structures, visited an empty mall, had hair-filled ice cream and examined the local newspaper all in one night!

On Wednesday, we picked up Kevin's parents at their house in St. Hubert and went to Cavendish. We visited the National Park there and Kevin and I went for a short bike ride, while his parents walked down to the beach. Our ride took us along a spectacular shore line and, good news, resulted in no knee pain for me. Next, we got into serious tourist mode and visited Green Gables. Well actually, it's a restoration of what they think the original Green Gables, which inspired L.M. Montgomery's descriptions in Anne, might have looked like. The house was owned by cousins of Montgomery's grandfather at the time, but Parks Canada took a little creative license and labeled the rooms "Matthew's," "Marilla's" and "Anne's." We also walked down Lovers' Lane to the Balsam Hollow Trail, through a woods that apparently provided great inspiration to the author.

Fun facts: Anne of Green Gables and Green Gables are trademarks and official marks of the Anne of Green Gables Licencing authority. L.M. Montgomery is a trademark of the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery.

Kevin spent the night at his parents' place, and then did another bike ride on Thursday. I used the time to get connected to the Interweb, and catch up on e-mail and other online distractions. I had meant to post this blog entry, but didn't quite finish before Kevin called me to come pick him up.

It was a long drive, over 90 minutes, back to his parents place. Actually, considering that this is supposed to be a small province, there have been a surprising number of really long drives on this trip. It seems everything is at least 45 minutes away, and that's traveling at 80 km/h on just about every road. On the upside, the drives provide an opportunity to enjoy the absurdly cute scenery. There are seemingly endless pastures and potato fields everywhere, with pretty woods and rolling hills in the distance. Little barns and houses dot the landscape.

We're spending the day today at the new home of Kevin's other sister, Jeanne. They just moved yesterday into this very cute house. And they have Webbernet access. Yes!

Tomorrow, we'll head to Halifax, and spend the day with Chris. We actually saw him for 10 minutes after the fireworks on Sunday. But it'll be very nice to spend some more time with him, and to see Halifax! Then, it's two more days of driving back to Toronto.

I'm Sorry, Knees!

Sad but true: I'm almost 30. I think my body has decided to make that clear to me.

I didn't get on my bike this year until May 12. And, for some reason, I decided that it would be fun and wise to go along with Kevin and Stu on a 50 kilometre ride that day.

At some point around the 35 kilometre mark, my left knee started feeling kind of funny. But, we were out in the middle of nowhere, so there was nothing much I could do but keep pedaling. I ended up favouring that leg until my right knee started feeling funny, too. By the time we finished the ride, it hurt just to walk.

A few hours later, I couldn't even flex my left knee. I was walking with a locked knee for the next couple of days.

It's now two weeks later and my knees were feeling fine again. With the Ride for Heart fast approaching, I was eager to get back on the bike. This evening, we went out for what was to be a short ride, and after just 8 kilometres, my left knee was feeling a little funny again. So, we turned around and headed back. Shortly before getting home, I was feeling slight, but unmistakable, pain in both knees with each stroke. I got off the bike and walked the last bit.

So, I guess I did some damage two weeks ago, and it'll take some more time to recover. The Ride for Heart is out the window. Now I'm just hoping my knees are in good enough shape to dance tomorrow and back to normal in time for our trip to PEI, as we've been planning to do some cycling there.

All I can say to my knees is, "I'm sorry! Get well soon!"

A Deal with the Devil for an MD Lie, Oh!

This just makes me laugh. I call it "ESL Idol."


Here's my best attempt at transcribing the lyrics:

I figure without
I was haba-long and ebrie-thin between
I was Ricky-wide
Baby to know what a mean
Till there was you
Yeah you

Something was wrong
Made a deal with the devil for an MD lie, oh
Been to heel and bah, burra angel was looking through
It was a you
Yeah you

It's all because a you

You are the reason
You are the reason
I wake up every day
Sleep to the night
You are the reason
The reason

In the middle of the night
I'm golden eye 'cause I won you
I want to torch you
I want to floor you
You are the reason baby

Her name is Alberta, She lives in Vancouver

Rejoice! Avenue Q is coming to Toronto!

If you don't know why this is exciting news, you should probably go check out some videos. I saw the show on Broadway in 2005, and it was fantastic. The whole concept is incredibly clever, the cast does an amazing job as puppeteers and actors simultaneously, and the songs are brilliantly funny.

Oddly enough, I was quite recently musing about the unlikelihood of this very happening. I figured that we'd never see Avenue Q mounted here because much of its humour is quite mature [1] and, occasionally, a little puzzling to those who don't hail from New York. [2] What with the mixed success of musical theatre in Toronto lately, it just didn't seem like a safe bet.

Well, it seems there's a new theatre company in town looking to shake things up a bit. Great, I can't wait! Actually, I guess I'll have to, since the month-long run won't start until July 29, 2008. Fortunately, they're planning a number of Broadway hit before then, starting this September.

And, there's always a certain movie to look forward to...

---
[1] This includes graphic puppet sex.
[2] Even the name of the show is based on New York geographical trivia.

Footnotes

Note to self: use footnotes in posts. Others do, and come across terribly well. They're a splendid way to manage tangents.

Oh, and continue to use more British expressions.