by Claus Gerard

Created on: January 18, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

Could you imagine? The pandemonium, the backlash, the accusations of discrimination? Yet, similar policies are in effect today, and objection or motion for change is all but invisble in today's public.

In 1985, the FDA adopted a policy banning donations of blood from any man who has ever had sex with another man since 1977 (around the time AIDS ballooned into an epidemic). Their rationale was clear; the gay demographic had the highest concentrations of HIV, and thus such a blanket measure protected the blood supply. Simple. Questioning of the policy was sparse; the epidemic nature of AIDS at the time made such drastic measures seem acceptable, even desirable- anything to contain the virus. It is twenty years later, and this policy is still firmly enforced at blood banks across America.

But today, the statistics show an interesting trend; HIV is rapidly become less and less a "gay disease," and more and more a black one. 50% of all new HIV cases in 2003 in America were in African-Americans, according to The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The new "high-risk" group is blacks. Why aren't there lifetime sanctions against their donation of blood? And why do we keep old, irrelevent sanctions that just limit the blood flow to hospitals?

I do NOT advocate adding African-Americans to the list of people turned away at face value by blood banks; such profiling is not only contrary to respect for individuals, but also is a travesty on a practical level; large quantities of healthy blood are rejected because of a few people within the group who have a disease. Yet we do it. Every day, America turns down good blood because of an old law which was despicable then, and even more abhorrant (and irrelevant) now.

And America's blood supply is drying up; the American Red Cross reports that our country's blood banks are insufficient to handle daily needs, let alone aid in a local or national crisis. Only five percent of Americans give blood. Ten percent of the national blood supply comes from high school students. And we're turning away good blood because of old stereotypes about AIDS.

With this news at hand, you would think that people would be calling for an end to the "gay ban" on blood. And you'd be right; recently, the American Red Cross joined the American Association of Blood Banks and America's Blood Centers in calling for an end to the lifetime ban on gay donors. Understanding that the method is both ineffective at combating HIV contamination in the blood supply

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