![]() ![]() Is the blood from a gay man really that much more tainted and possibly dangerous than others? It’s an assumption that has been in place for over 30 years - but it also exposes a troubling fear of gay men that may have been in place even longer. The deferral period should be no longer than 30 days.” When a slightly less restrictive policy was issued, Dan Bruner, the senior director of policy at Washington, DC’s longstanding HIV clinic, Whitman-Walker Health, released a similar statement: “The updated policy is still discriminatory and not rooted in the reality of HIV testing today. “We find ourselves in a situation where the victims directly affected by this tragedy and in need of lifesaving blood are the very people banned from donating it,” the grassroots advocacy organization National Gay Blood Drive posted on its website. The tragedy in Orlando has brought to surface a medical directive that some call entrenched homophobia. It’s a ban that has been in place since the ’80s, a ban which many say is as groundless and outdated as sodomy laws. Certain segments of the population are banned from giving blood, foremost among them sexually active gay and bisexual men. ![]() There are false reports circulating that FDA rules are being lifted. Initial reports from several respected news sites indicated that OneBlood would be welcoming all blood donors, but hours later on that tragic Sunday, OneBlood tweeted a correction: Sadly, one of OneBlood’s own employees, Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, was one of the victims. With 49 people killed and 53 people injured in the shooting, members of the LGBTQ community rallied to donate at OneBlood, Central Florida’s largest not-for-profit blood donation center. But that is just what happened last week after the shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando. Nothing rubs salt in the wounds of tragedy like bigotry or bureaucracy - or both. It added that since the start of the pandemic, blood donations are down 10 percent and blood drives at schools - where blood is frequently collected - have dropped 62 percent.Emily Pidgeon/TED Homophobia and mass shootings are afflictions that won’t be solved overnight - but the problematic and outdated restrictions against gay blood donors could be. The organization said on Tuesday that it had less than a one-day supply of critical blood types, forcing doctors to make “difficult decisions’’ about who should receive life-saving blood transfusions. This most recent surge of Covid-19 cases has again left the Red Cross struggling to find donors. In April 2020 - amid the earlier pandemic-induced blood shortage and a slew of rebukes from lawmakers and advocates - the FDA decreased the donation deferral period for men who have sex with men from 12 months to three months of abstinence. It was not until 2015 that the ban was replaced with one-year abstinence requirement. In 1983, the federal government placed a lifetime ban on men who have sex with men from donating blood in an effort to keep HIV out of the blood supply. Restrictions on gay and bisexual men donating blood stem from the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. also pressed the FDA to reassess its current blood donation policy on men who have sex with men. Given advances in blood screening and safety technology, a time-based policy for gay and bisexual men is not scientifically sound, continues to effectively exclude an entire group of people, and does not meet the urgent demands of the moment,” the group wrote.įour Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, in addition to two openly LGBTQ members of the House - Rep. “Any policy that continues to categorically single out the LGBTQ+ community is discriminatory and wrong. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., one of two openly LGBTQ senators - urged the FDA to scrap the restrictions. In a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and FDA acting Commissioner Dr. The only thing stopping them is bigotry and fear.” “They can change the policy - even temporarily - and they can do so today. “This is a crisis of the FDA’s own making,” said Jay Franzone, an LGBTQ advocate who remained abstinent for a year to donate blood in January 2017, abiding by former and more stringent FDA restrictions for gay and bisexual men. The chorus of criticism intensified this week after the Red Cross declared on Tuesday that the recent surge in Covid-19 cases had fueled the “worst blood shortage in more than a decade.” ![]()
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