I used to give blood every six to eight weeks when I was in my 20’s. Giving blood was a small way to help others in their hour of need. I coordinated our office blood drives when I worked for Senator Kennedy and even earned an award from Elizabeth Dole when she headed the American Red Cross. It was religious to me.
Then, in 2001, I came out to myself and to others, and it all changed. That’s because our own government – through the Food and Drug Administration – had imposed a lifetime ban on accepting blood donated by gay men. I certainly could have lied about my sexual orientation at the time and kept right on donating but it seemed wrong to start lying again about who I was after so many years of lying to myself.
This weekend, as we all watched the coverage of the horrible hate and terror filled attack in Orlando, that instinct to donate blood came right back. It was an instinct felt by many people, as demonstrated by hundreds of people in Florida who lined city blocks to donate blood for the 53 victims still battling for their lives.
But the sad reality is not all donations are welcome. That’s because while the FDA removed the lifetime ban on blood donations, it still prohibits accepting blood from any gay man who has been sexually active in the past year. Period. No debate. No testing or screening. Nothing.
This is a discrimination that doesn’t exist for any other groups of Americans.
So while others can line up to do their small part to help the victims in Orlando, tens of thousands of gay men like me are forced to stand on the sidelines. Imagine how disenfranchising that is to have someone say to you that even if you know your status and a test can prove it, you have no right to step up and help another human being in need.
What do we do instinctively when we are attacked and loved ones are hurt? We find a way to help. We step up and say – I’m here, put me to work. But our own government is preventing that.
This is a policy that must be changed. Screening and testing exists – let’s use it.
In the coming days and weeks, I will be reaching out to advocates and health care experts to see what we need to do to get this ban lifted in a way that protects the integrity of our nation’s blood supply while empowering all of us to give back.
If we can’t elect a majority in Congress who will deal with AR-15’s, the least we can do is make sure we have all hands on deck to deal with the results of hate-filled terror attacks and their impact on our blood supply.
If you have particular knowledge or stories on this topic, please email me at SK@SteveKerrigan.org.
Let’s get to work ending this injustice.
Thank you and may God bless all of the victims in Orlando.
I’m old enough to remember when HIV/AIDS was the “gay disease” and I assume that is the fear informing this outdated and prejudicial policy. Why can’t the blood just be tested? Does the FDA assume that blood from straight people is not so infected?
Directly from the Red Cross (bolding is my own):
Blood donations are testing for the following:
ABO and Rh blood types.
Unexpected red blood cell antibodies that are a result of prior transfusion, pregnancy, or other factors.
Hepatitis B surface antigen, indicating a current infection (hepatitis) or carrier state for hepatitis B virus.
Antibody to hepatitis B core antigen, indicator of a present or past infection with the hepatitis B virus.
Antibody to hepatitis C virus, indicating a current or past infection with hepatitis C virus (most common cause of non-A/non-B hepatitis).
Antibody to HTLV-I/II, indicator of infection with a virus that may cause adult T-cell leukemia or neurological disease.
Antibody to HIV-1/2, indicator of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Nucleic Acid Test (NAT) for hepatitis C (HCV), hepatitis B (HBV) and HIV.
Screening test for antibodies to syphilis.
NAT for West Nile Virus (WNV).
Enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) test for Trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas Disease).
The issue is that all tests are not perfect; they have false positives, and also false negatives, which means that some perfectly good donations will be discarded as HIV+, and also that some HIV+ donations will slip through.
So they attempt to reduce the risk by testing, and also by screening out higher risk donations. Not “high risk” but “higher risk.” They also screen out IV drug users, and various other populations that have an elevated risk of this or other conditions.
If the test lets through 0.01% of HIV+ donations (I have no idea if that is a realistic number), then the way to reduce the number of donations that slip through is to reduce the number of HIV+ donations to test– hence the screening.
Those of us who have been diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease.
My big question is:
Is the sub-group being excluded because of math or because of bias? If male-to-male sexual transmissions of HIV make gay sexually active men more likely to have contracted HIV recently, it is certainly plausible that the added risk of a patient contracting HIV from a Type II error simply isn’t worth the reward of that one more quart of blood. *
You don’t have a right to donate blood. Loads of people are ineligible for a variety of reasons. We in America do have a right to demand that any restrictions not be based on bias, but instead only be based in the science.
The Red Cross should produce a clear, concise explanation of why gay men who have been sexually active in the past year can’t donate. Maybe it already has.
* footnote: the test the Red Cross uses for HIV doesn’t always detect tainted blood if HIV was recently contracted. Therefore, it may be appropriate to exclude people who have a heightened risk of recently contracting HIV. The details matter; go ask an expert.
The last time I checked, in mid-2000, here was the context:
– HIV was, at that time, very difficult to detect in blood samples, especially for recently-infected victims
– While dirty needles was the largest source of HIV infection, unprotected receptive anal sex was (a somewhat distant) second.
– Women who receive unprotected anal sex were just as vulnerable to HIV as men.
– At least in the US, the risk of contracting HIV from unprotected vaginal sex, even with an infected partner, was FAR lower than other STDs and far lower than other HIV transmission vectors.
– HIV transmission through oral sex was extremely rare.
I hope that those who are more informed about the current state of affairs can speak to this question.
My sense is that the FDA lacks the political will to speak candidly about the risky behavior that allows HIV transmission.
For better or worse, I think the rationale was that
1. People who receive anal sex are more likely to be infected with HIV than anyone else.
2. Gay men are much more likely to be in that group than more easily-determined demographics — few women will admit to practicing receptive anal sex, and few workers will ask about it. Many potential donors are unwilling to share intimate details about themselves.
3. HIV was, at the time, a death sentence. Even today, it is a very grave disorder.
4. The risk of false negatives (tests that show incorrectly show no HIV infection when the potential donor is, in fact, HIV positive) outweighs other considerations in preserving the safety of the blood supply.