The Food and Drug Administration’s ban restricting homosexual since 1983 from donating blood has caused some Sinclair Community College students to ask why at a time when many blood donation organizations have announced they feel the ban should be lifted.
“Why are they not allowed to donate blood, because what, they might be carrying AIDS,” said Rhonda Blagg, a social work major. “Why can’t they just test them before and then take the blood?”
“That’s not true, are you sure? I thought that they have to do HIV testing anyway,” said Melissa McGurk, 35, a former SCC student and mental health technology major.”
The FDA imposed this ban in 1983 at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
According to the FDA men who have sex with other men are at a higher risk of contracting HIV, hepatitis B and other infections.
Homosexual men are not the only group to be restricted from donating; intravenous drug users, animal transplant recipients, some who have traveled or lived abroad and people who have engaged in sex for money are also restricted from donating blood.
“I know that if you have been over in England before a certain year you may be omitted from donating too,” said McGurk. “That’s also a question on there because you could have had mad cow disease.”
A FDA questionnaire given before donation
that asked donors about behaviors that increase
their risk of HIV infection restricts certain people from donating based on answers the donor provides.
When Anthony Cain, President of SCC club Brite Signal Alliance, attempted to donate blood while working for a previous employer
who held a blood drive, was shocked to find that he was ineligible to do so.
“I was honest and answered the questions honestly and that’s when
I was informed that I was unable to donate blood,” said Cain, 35, nursing major.
Cain described the moment when he discovered that he was not going to be able to donate blood.
“I felt that [not being able to donate] was absolutely absurd because I was in a monogamous relationship with a non-HIV positive partner, so the risk was not there,” said Cain. “I felt mortified. I felt like I
was being judged on the presumption that I was HIV positive when I was not. I felt discriminated against.”
According to their website, the FDA realizes that this policy leads to deferral of many healthy donors, but the policy restricting men who have sex with other men from donating minimizes even the small risk of getting infectious disease such as HIV or hepatitis through a blood transfusion.
There is still a small risk of contracting an infectious disease such as HIV through a blood transfusion. In the early years of the HIV epidemic, blood transfusions were at increased risk for transmitting HIV infection. In 1985, however, an HIV test became available,
and screening of all blood donations rapidly became universal. The U.S. blood supply is now among the safest in the world according to www.aids.gov.
The American Medical Association voted to end the ban last year saying that there was new medical technique advances in detecting HIV in donated blood.
“The lifetime ban on blood donation for men who have sex with men is discriminatory and not based on sound science,” said Dr. William Kobler, AMA board member, in a Time magazine report last month. “This new policy urges a federal policy change to ensure blood donation bans or deferrals are applied to donors according to their individual level of risk and are not based on sexual orientation alone.”
Many blood donation organizations have voiced their concern for the ban saying it should be lifted and is not necessary.
In a joint statement issued in July of this year the American Association of Blood Banks, America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross said they believe the current lifetime deferral for men who have had sex with other men should be modified.
Donor deferral criteria should be made comparable with criteria for other behaviors that pose an increased risk for transmission of transfusion- transmitted infections according to the American Red Cross.
Blood shortages continue across the country and
on average, the Red Cross must collect 15,000 blood donations every day for patients at about 2,700 hospitals and transfusion centers across the country, according to their website.
The FDA says on it’s website that it would change the policy, only if supported by scientific data showing that a change in policy would not present a significant and preventable risk to blood recipients.
“I think it is a ban that was placed in the past for good reason, but it serves no purpose at this time with the advanced medical technology that we have. I believe that we are behind modern times by not lifting the ban,” said Cain. “It bothers me deeply I can’t donate blood. I would love to donate blood.”