In the US, it is an Individual Donor Assessment and applies to everyone. Everyone gets the same question tree, regardless of sexual orientation. If you have had a new partner in the last 3 months or have multiple partners that doesn’t defer you, it sends you to the next tier of question: have you engaged in anal sex. Yes to anal with a new partner or multiple partners is the deferral. If you haven’t had a new partner or multiple partners in the last 3 months, you will not be asked about anal sex. Canada went live with their individual donor assessment a year before the US and has noted a slight drop in donations in straight donors because they are now being deferred for high risk activity when they were previously missed.

Prep is listed under a medication deferral. First responders that take prep for protection from workplace exposure are deferred as well.

(I’m a blood banker)

Retoin, won’t you retoin my love?

My love is yours

This overlooks that 100% cotton jeans will break down when they are discarded (unlike polyester and nylon). A good pair of jeans can be mended and worn for many years instead of a new pair every year. Jeans can lead a very useful “after life” as insulation or be recycled into new fabric.

It also ignores the chemicals and energy required to turn beechwood and bamboo into wearable fabric.

I don’t know what the solution is but natural fabrics aren’t the enemy.

Gotcha! I’ve stuck with Samsung because they make a phone that will fit in the pathetic excuse that is women’s pants pockets. My husband tried to get me to switch to the Pixel but it was too big.

My Samsung does it very easily with decent customization options in Gallery (and has for at least two phones). What phone are you using that can’t? I agree the collage feature in Google photos is lame.

Well how do we know that any scale at all is right?

My lab has weights that get calibrated against a NIST standard annually. We use those weights to perform daily quality control that our scale is accurate (to +/- 0.01g). If the quality control fails then we recalibrate the scale.

Ezekiel’s description is pretty wild: Ezekiel 10:12-21 Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels. I heard the wheels being called “the whirling wheels.” Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the Kebar River. When the cherubim moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the cherubim spread their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels did not leave their side. When the cherubim stood still, they also stood still; and when the cherubim rose, they rose with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in them. Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim.While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the Kebar River, and I realized that they were cherubim. Each had four faces and four wings, and under their wings was what looked like the hands of a man.

For a while people were doing AI prompts for biblically accurate angels (sometimes mashed with other characters). I can only do so much with sugar cookie dough.

Same in NM

Yes! I went to an evangelical church run private school. They had the brilliant idea to send good “strong Christian” students to raves and parties to narc on their classmates that attended said raves and parties. I wish I was making that up.

Candy. They are Betty Crocker Dessert Decorations candy eyeballs.

You don’t work in healthcare. Half your coworkers are on vacation and patients aren’t 😭

I have witnessed this exchange >.<

The first part is what my husband tells me.

I do recognize that Medical Laboratory Scientists are a very superstitious lot especially funny since our degree and certification include Scientist. Don’t say it’s slow or quiet because it’s getting to get stupid busy (and everyone will blame you). Don’t run quality control more than required because you are tempting failure and will have to do a look back of all the testing to make sure it was accurate. We jokingly put an elf on the shelf out that had FDA written on the hat and the FDA showed up for an unannounced inspection a week later. I’m a Lead and every time I bring my Lead work to the bench with me, we get so busy with patient samples and orders that I can’t touch it. All are definitely confirmation bias situations.

Full moons do not have an impact on people with mental illness, make weird things happen, increase work load, or increase the chance of going into labor. I have worked in three separate hospitals in three separate states and the consensus is: full moons bring out the crazies and the babies.

I don’t know where they are getting that price for blood. My perfectly legal, screened, and tested Red Blood Cell units are about $455/pint, plasma $118/pint, and platelets are $1,577/pint. I don’t know if they are undervaluing because whole blood is a pain to work with.

Frozen bone for transplant that I’ve seen (I work in Blood Bank) are small pieces, not entire bone. That price quote doesn’t specify per gram, per bone, or per “unit” so who knows.

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I work in a hospital. I continued to commute to work and do my job through all of the shortages and all of the uncertainty. I died a little each day I had to stop my then 3.5yo twins from rushing to hug me at the door so I could change, drop my clothes in the wash, and wash my hands before they touched me. Then they stopped trying. It was a year before I was greeted at the door with a hug. I knelt there crying the first time they did it again.

I saw all my friends doing all the lock down things and knew that society and employers would never make it up to those of us who worked through it all. We didn’t even get pizza parties because my hospital had a no shared food policy for infection prevention.

I walked past maskless protestors outside my hospital accusing of us every ludicrous talking point there was. For the first time in my career I questioned why I did it. Why was I risking my family’s health and my own to take care of THEM.

Yes… #blessed

I love the tradition of trick or treating in the neighborhood. I hate that it is dying in some communities (instead going to malls, trunk or treat etc). I happily give candy to anyone who knocks on the door and I don’t care how old they are or if it’s “late”. It’s a fun time for everyone.

I agree! I would much rather actually retire which now, thanks to my pension providing job, I can.