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Gays Make Crappy Blood Donors
Nov. 25th, 2008 08:34 am
My workplace is holding a blood drive today, sponsored by the Stanford Blood Center. If you take a look at the website, you'll notice that there are blood shortages for all four blood types, and there's a convenient little counter that lets you know how many people have needed blood since you've arrived.
I have a pretty rare blood type and thought I would check to see if the Red Cross has eased up on their ban of homosexual men donating. As it turns out, they have! The bad news, it's not enough.
The attendant, poor thing, squirmed a lot when I came out and asked her if gay people were allowed to give blood. She took me to another room, opened the deferral book, and assured me that the FDA is working on the policy. If you've engaged in mutual masturbation with another male, or if you and the other male were below 10 years old at the time and engaged in oral or anal sex (really?) you can donate. However, if you've had oral or anal sex with another male, even once, since 1977, you're still BANNED FOR LIFE.
The attendant tried to assure me that it had nothing to do with sexuality, but homosexual intercourse puts someone in a high-risk group for AIDS. They test every bag for it, to be sure, but the FDA has declared their test (which she assured me then was 99.9% accurate) not accurate enough. So, until they can develop a test that 100% of the time will tell whether or not someone has AIDS, it's not good enough for the FDA.
Am I the only one failing to see the logic in this? It pisses me off that they're crying out so badly about the need for donating blood, but they're turning away people who are ready and willing to help because of an outdated and discriminatory practice.
I'll be writing a letter to the Stanford Blood Center, the Red Cross and the FDA asking them to explain this to me. This whole "No, you can't" thing is getting under my skin.
I have a pretty rare blood type and thought I would check to see if the Red Cross has eased up on their ban of homosexual men donating. As it turns out, they have! The bad news, it's not enough.
The attendant, poor thing, squirmed a lot when I came out and asked her if gay people were allowed to give blood. She took me to another room, opened the deferral book, and assured me that the FDA is working on the policy. If you've engaged in mutual masturbation with another male, or if you and the other male were below 10 years old at the time and engaged in oral or anal sex (really?) you can donate. However, if you've had oral or anal sex with another male, even once, since 1977, you're still BANNED FOR LIFE.
The attendant tried to assure me that it had nothing to do with sexuality, but homosexual intercourse puts someone in a high-risk group for AIDS. They test every bag for it, to be sure, but the FDA has declared their test (which she assured me then was 99.9% accurate) not accurate enough. So, until they can develop a test that 100% of the time will tell whether or not someone has AIDS, it's not good enough for the FDA.
Am I the only one failing to see the logic in this? It pisses me off that they're crying out so badly about the need for donating blood, but they're turning away people who are ready and willing to help because of an outdated and discriminatory practice.
I'll be writing a letter to the Stanford Blood Center, the Red Cross and the FDA asking them to explain this to me. This whole "No, you can't" thing is getting under my skin.
