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Loading ...Senators: Lift ban on gays donating blood
03.04.2010 3:53pm EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — The time has come to change a policy that imposes a lifetime ban on donating blood for any man who has had gay sex since 1977, 18 senators said Thursday.
“Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who joined 16 other Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in writing Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.The lawmakers stressed that the science has changed dramatically since the ban was established in 1983 at the advent of the HIV-AIDS crisis. Today donated blood must undergo two different, highly accurate tests that make the risk of tainted blood entering the blood supply virtually zero, they said.
The senators said that while hospitals and emergency rooms are in urgent need of blood products, “healthy blood donors are turned away every day due to an antiquated policy and our blood supply is not necessarily any safer for it.”
Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign,the nation’s largest gay rights group, said they are hopeful that the policy, last reviewed in 2006, will change under President Barack Obama, “who is interested in looking at all the policies that have a discriminatory effect.” The goal, he said, is “to have policies in place that are based on the science” rather than “any discriminatory idea about our community.”
The senators’ letter noted that in March 2006, the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers and the American Association of Blood Banks reported to an FDA-sponsored workshop that the ban “is medically and scientifically unwarranted.”
The FDA, in a statement, said that “while FDA appreciates concerns about perceived discrimination, our decision to maintain the deferral policy is based on current science and data and does not give weight to a donor’s sexual orientation.”
It said that while some groups favor relaxing restrictions, others, “such as those representing the hemophilia community, support continuation of the current policy.”
People with hemophilia, a bleeding disorder, require periodic transfusions and in the past, before screening techniques were improved to ensure blood was HIV-free, were among those most at risk of contracting the virus.
Kerry compared the effort to lift the blood donation ban to legislation he backed in 2008 to end the law banning people with HIV from traveling and immigrating to the United States. That ban was lifted last year.
Also signing the letter were Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Dick Durbin and Roland Burris of Illinois, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Al Franken of Minnesota, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Carl Levin of Michigan, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Mark Begich of Alaska.
Even if they list this restriction I still could not give blood. I was stationed in Germany and because of the mad cow scare I am banned.
A blanket ban just does not make sense in light of current knowledge and blood-testing technology. Having said this, I also believe that anyone wishing to give blood has a moral responsibility to avoid taking undue risks. While having Gay sex with other men is no reason to ban a person from donating blood, having sex with multiple anonymous sexual partners and/or not taking safer sex precautions certainly is a good reason for not donating blood.
@Wayne, it only takes ONE sex partner to transmit HIV. There are thousands of HIV positive men and women out there who had a “normal” sex life and still were infected with HIV and there are hundreds of thousands, millions?, of people out there who have had multiple anonymous partners and have taken care and have managed to stay HIV free.
And while we would hope that people would have some morals and not donate if they know they were positive, the sad fact is that more than 1 in 4 people who are HIV positive have NO CLUE they are.
That said, I find this a very difficult topic. As a group we are high risk. It doesn’t have to be about discrimination, that’s just a fact. Giving blood is not a “right”. IF the new methods of testing are 100% accurate and all tainted blood can be detected, then fine. If NOT, if there is even a chance that one innocent person could become infected because someone with HIV, known or not, donated blood, then I have no problem keeping the ban until a fool proof way IS discovered.
If I was a hemopheliac and knew that there was a “chance” that tainted blood could get through and more than 1 in 4 infected didn’t know, I’d think my life was more important than someone’s hurt feelings over the idea of being discriminated against.
My hurt feelings don’t trump someone else’s health. I’m not that selfish. If they can make it 100% safe then lift the ban. If not, keep it until they can. Virtually zero? Would you trust someone to not wear a condom if they told you the chance was “virtually zero?”
So, now they want our blood! But, God forbid we should be allowed to serve in the military next to a straight person. I guess blood inside somebody isn’t as dangerous as a gay person NEXT TO somebody.
LOL… michaelandfred are you a troll from a fundy site? ???? I take offense at your assumptions that WE ALL are high risk. I am not a risk for anything and haven’t been for some time. You obviously have some issues with the gay community if you think we all act like whatever it is you think your acting like…. and thats nothing to act up about lol
as for the feelings of hemophiliacs… you are taking a risk anytime you put something in your body it didn’t make. frankly I would just be happy people wanted to try and help … If i was a hemophiliac I would assume I would just have to trust the technology that was in place to protect me…supergyromaticbloodsensor2000 or whatever… your implicit belief that we should cater to feelings of fear however is more troublesome… where exactly does that line end?
Gay people are a diverse group. It makes no sense to lump us all together and label us high risk. Who poses greater risk, a male couple who have been monogamous for 30 years, or a swinging straight couple who have had unprotected sex with hundreds of third parties? Anal sex poses a high risk for transmitting HIV, but that’s equally true whether the participants are two men or a man and a woman. As I recall, male-male sex in itself is no riskier than male-female sex.
The article notes that the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, and the American Association of Blood Banks reported in 2006 that the ban “is medically and scientifically unwarranted.” Stereotypes are a very poor basis for medical policy. It’s time to be guided by science and lift this archaic ban!
Weighing in here – I am the retired office manager for the Hepatitis Education Project in Seattle. I also have hepatitis C which automatically disqualifies me to give blood. Five years ago I had my hip replaced and prior to surgery I banked my own blood in case I needed a transfusion (I did). After the first bag was drawn I got a call from the blood bank telling me I was ineligible to donate blood because I have hepatitis C.
That’s how they work now. Blood is screened for a zillionteen different diseases and you are told, by letter and/or by phone call, that you have thus-and-such condition and are ineligible to give blood.
The FDA has no business continuing this antiquated, discriminatory system in light of the newest state-of-the-art screening procedures.
@michaelandfred You forget to mention that promiscuos heterosexual men are also high risk, even higher than gay men who are not promiscuos and live in a mutual monogamous relationship. YOur sexual orientation does not detemine how high is the risk. What does determine it is how promiscuos you are and is not because you are gay or straight.
No military service. No marriage. No joint tax returns. No visiting in the hospital. No job protection. No blood donations. Sounds like bigotry to me.