Since 1983, the FDA has placed a blanket ban on blood donations from anyone who has had sex with another man at any time since the nation’s bicentennial in 1976. The ban was instituted as hysteria about the AIDS epidemic was growing and blood screening technology hadn’t been instituted to detect the virus in blood donations. The FDA insists that the decision, now in its fourth decade is “based on the documented increased risk of certain transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, associated with male-to-male sex and is not based on any judgment concerning the donor’s sexual orientation.”
Bull.
As the FDA hearings on the ban this week have shown, there is no good scientific reason why gay men and men who have sex with men are singled out for treatment that no one else receives. The FDA insists that it’s concerned about the safety of the blood supply, but here are five good reasons why the agency seems to be motivated by anything but science.
1. The FDA is more lenient with straight men. Have unprotected sex with a female prostitute, and you have to wait a year before you can donate blood. Watch a Judy Garland movie anytime since Gerald Ford was president, and you’re a leper for life.
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2. The agency doesn’t differentiate what kind of gay sex. The science proves that unprotected anal sex is a high-risk behavior for HIV transmission. Other types of sex don’t carry anything like the same risk. But the FDA doesn’t care what kind of sex you had, just that you had it with another man. In the FDA’s book, mutual masturbation is as good a reason to ban gay blood donors as unprotected anal sex.
3. Monogamy? Never heard of it. In a monogamous relationship? The FDA doesn’t care and it’s not about to take your word for it in any case. It just care that you’re knocking boots with another man. Imagine if they applied the same standard to heterosexual married couples.
4. Multiple experts have called the ban nonsense. The American Medical Association, the American Red Cross, and the American Association of Blood Banks have all called on the FDA to change its policy on the grounds that its not based on sound science. A one-year deferral, which is common in many countries, would make more sense than a lifetime ban, they argued and would result in one additional transfusion-related infection every 32 years.
5. The technology is incredibly advanced. The most commonly used test to screen blood donations will detect HIV within nine days of the donor becoming infected. The risk of transmission from a donation is from anyone who just become infected with HIV within a little more than the past week. From the way the FDA acts, you think that science has stood still since Reagan was president.
The FDA panel that held hearings to consider lifting the ban was unable to come to any conclusion after two days of “heated deliberations.” The heat seems to come from something other than cold hard science. In the meantime, the agency seems intent on reminding us that the hysteria that fueled the response to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s is still alive and kicking.
Trippy
My company sponsors a blood drive with the local Red Cross every 8 weeks. I’m the point person for donor recruitment and have been for years. I obviously can’t donate, but I’ve read the questionnaire that the ARC provides to all donors. One of the phlebotomists calls it the “sex test.” Have any of you ever seen it? 2/3 of it is the most homophobic piece of garbage I’ve ever read (outside of a church). If these questions were geared toward straights, the ARC would have to shut down its blood collection business.
I asked a single straight coworker how he managed to pass the sex test while being so sexually active on the weekends with local women, and he simply said this, “I lie. Doesn’t everyone?”
Desert Boy
Fine. I know several RNs and they always say their hospitals are forced to runs blood drives due to blood shortages. If they don’t want my blood then fuck ’em.
jason smeds
The FDA thinks that homosexuality is an infection. If you receive blood from a homosexual, you will become a homosexual too – that is how it thinks.
Keep in mind that many medical professionals – including some that sit on the board of the FDA – are highly homophobic.
Harley
@Desert Boy: Did you not read the article? “The American Medical Association, the American Red Cross, and the American Association of Blood Banks have all called on the FDA to change its policy on the grounds that its not based on sound science.” They want the blood. It’s the politics that’s getting in the way. Don’t be mad at the blood banks. They would love to take your donation.
Jacob23
@Trippy: What were some of the homophobic questions on the screening questionnaire? I would have thought they would just be straightforward questions about sexual activity.
It is up to the FDA to weigh the costs of a ban vs. the benefits. Banning a small group of people who have a very high HIV prevalence may make sense b/c you miss out on very few untainted donations while excluding a lot of tainted ones. The same calculus might not apply to hetero males who have had vaginal sex with a prostitute. If the number of such men is large and the HIV prevalence low, it wouldn’t make sense to ban them as a group. This isn’t some civil rights question or some exercise in fairness. It is a mathematical calculation to balance the need for blood against the need to screen out as many tainted donations as possible. I don’t claim to know that the FDA has made the right call, but I do know that it is pointless to complain about this or that other group which was treated differently.
BTW, one great way to end this ban is for gay and bi men to, you know, stop getting infected with HIV. If the infection rate had been reduced to zero or near-zero back in the mid or late 80s, we would have very low prevalence of HIV today and there would be no ban.
gaym50ish
If the concern is with anal sex, where is the Centers for Disease Control on this issue? According to a study released in 2011 by the CDC and the National Center for Health Statistics. 44 percent of straight men and 36 percent of straight women engage is anal sex.
Also, 45 percent of Americans who are living with AIDS are black, but I don’t see any support for a ban on donations by black people.
jason smeds
Why are healthy gay men who engage in anal sex being excluded from giving blood? Doesn’t make sense at all.
And, yet, men and women who have anal with each other can give blood regardless of their health status.
The FDA sucks. It’s high time Obama overturned its ridiculous discrimination. Alternatively, it should be de-funded.
IcarusD
@Jacob23: I don’t know what the questions are today, but in 1986 (the one and only time I donated), the questions not only asked about behavior, which is also understandable, but also identity. At the time, I was just started to come out but had never even met another gay person, much less kissed or had sex with another man. I wasn’t offended that they asked if I ever had sex with another man. I was offended that they asked if I was gay, because a gay virgin’s blood is about as uninfected as it can get.
In light of the new tests that had detect infection within nine days, I think in an abundance of caution that a one-month period of no penetrative sex plus on-the-spot testing would be reasonable.
buffnightwing
Gay men can donate blood, just lie. Republicans do it every second of the day.