"We've been fighting this for years," says Mark Segal, editor of the Philadelphia Gay News. "If you're a gay male who has been in a monogamous relationship for 30 years, you're still considered a greater risk [to the blood pool] than if you're a promiscuous heterosexual who has had hundreds of partners for 30 years. "Things have changed, but the FDA hasn't changed with the times."
I try to be very conservative about copyright infringement in my diaries, so I'm resisting the urge to wholesale cut and paste the entirety of what I considered to be a very good (but brief) article. So I encourage people to go to MSNBC directly and read it.
Excellent points are made about the lack of scientific basis. Sympathetic voices are quoted from the Red Cross expressing disagreement with the FDA. One activist points out that the ban continues to stigmatize gay men as "walking AIDS incubators."
I'd add the lifetime ban also assumes gay men can't be trusted to be responsible guardians of public health. Even those who self-select to participate in these activities. While the FDA trusts straight people to be honest and upfront in the screening questionnaire about their risk activities, gays in their view, apparently cannot be trusted. If they assure the screener they've been monogamous or celibate for many years, that isn't good enough. But heterosexual people, well, you know, they just wouldn't lie about such things.
The ban also denies--capriciously--a class of people the right to participate in an activity, that is constructive and literally life-saving for their communities.
Dr. Steven Kleinman, senior medical adviser of the American Association of Blood Banks, is frustrated by the FDA’s decision. "We think the year-long ban is more than reasonable," says Kleinman. "The FDA doesn't. We find their policy discriminatory, scientifically marginal and unfair."
And no wonder he's frustrated. Blood shortages are becoming very common in the United States. The Madison Eagle (NJ) reports: "New Jersey used 45,269 more units of blood than it collected and had to borrow from other states that are now facing blood shortages of their own." This is one of many such articles, I was able to google up, reflecting a nationwide crisis.
As Jon Givner of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund says in the Washington Post:
"The blood deferral policy that exists is not based on science. It's based on inertia and in many cases stereotypes. The FDA should revisit the issue and adopt a deferral policy that is based on actual risk rather than sexual orientation."
Let's get rid of the lifetime ban, shall we?
Updated to include link to NPR podcast from 2007 where three major blood banks, including the American Red Cross, discuss the desire to revise this policy. Hat tip to Pam Bennett.
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