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(Durham, New Hampshire) Members of the Student
Senate at the University of New Hampshire used a campus Red Cross blood donor
clinic to protest the Food and Drug Administration's refusal to allow gays to
donate.
As students and UNH staff went into the clinic,
the protestors asked them to sign a petition against the ban.
More than 700 people put their names on the
document.
Under the Food and Drug Administration regulation
men who have had sex with other men since 1977 are barred from
donating blood.
Potential Red Cross donors are asked in a questionnaire whether have
had sex with other men since 1977. Answering yes means a life-time ban as
a donor.
Last February the UNH Student Senate passed resolution in
February that urged the FDA to drop the prohibition calling it discriminatory.
While gays were the largest group hit by HIV/AIDS when the ban was first
introduced they have surpassed by intravenous drug uses and the fastest growing
groups with HIV today are African Americans and women.
The blood donor clinic continues all week at UNH
and organizers of the petition say they hope to have 1,000 signatures by the
time it ends.
©365Gay.com 2005
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