by Mercedes Beach
Graphic Designer

   Recently, my friend from Arizona told me about a blood drive at his public high school. His friend, a young man, was turned away from donating blood in front of his peers after admitting that yes, he was gay, and no, he was not a virgin. The teenager, not yet open about his sexuality, was told that, despite being healthy and willing to donate blood, he was at high risk for contracting or having contracted HIV/AIDS, and he was therefore not eligible to give blood. The boy was devastated. Later that night, he sat with his family at the dinner table and was asked by his parents to explain why he didn't end up giving blood that day.

   Of course, I am understanding of the risks the American Red Cross is attempting to avoid in blood donations and the way in which the nurses publicly handled the boy's situation is not the issue at hand. Even so, I was confused by what happened to my friend's peer. I was under the impression that blood was automatically screened before given to any patient, even if the donor was eligible, according to the verbal report, and his or her health fine. I was puzzled by the system the American Red Cross employed, so I decided to find out what qualifies a person to give blood and why the young man was immediately turned away.
 
   The Red Cross currently has extensive and stringent eligibility requirements. They indefinitely ban anyone who has "done something that puts [them] at risk for becoming infected with HIV," including any "male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977.” Such a general ban on a large group of people is destructive. Not only is the ban considered outdated and discriminatory, but it prevents millions of strong, healthy, and willing people from donating blood to help others and save lives.

   Gay men have been barred from blood donations since AIDS became a public health crisis in the 1980s. I understand the Red Cross's current policy and its past relevance; it has its merit. While blood screenings before transfusion are highly accurate, they are not 100 percent accurate. There is a very slight risk in accepting blood that has possibly been infected. Nonetheless, reform of these policies is in immediate order. Tests are not foolproof, but every blood specimen is painstakingly screened 13 times for 11 infectious diseases, including HIV. Since the discovery of HIV/AIDS, drastic progress has been made in understanding and detecting the disease.
 
   The policies the Red Cross employs are extremely outdated. Prevention in the spread of HIV has increased exponentially since the initial responses in the 80s and 90s. Sexually active gay men in this decade are more aware, cautious, and safe than in the past 20 years. Correspondently, men are more forthcoming and open about having sex with other men as acceptance of homosexuality in our culture and society increases.
 
   These donor restrictions lay down multiple offenses to the gay community; they are found to enforce the stereotype of AIDS as only particular to gay men and they insult gay men who practice safe sex and maintain healthy lifestyles.
 These policies are entirely too general. They reject any male who has participated in a sexual act with another male in the past several decades, as well as any women who have had sexual contact with any of these men within one year. These restrictions discriminate against millions of healthy human beings and provides slight, if any, additional protection to our donated blood supply.
 
   The Red Cross must update its policies in order to meet the demand by patients in hospitals. Blood centers nationwide are struggling with dangerously low supply levels. Current regulations make donating blood more difficult for the donors to give and for centers to meet high demand. While the Red Cross essentially begs for more donors, it's policies rejects millions of healthy, infection-free people. Even those who can prove they are HIV negative are sent away. Now, with new and highly accurate technology to screen donated blood, the policies are only discriminatory. Any merit the policies have is forgotten when the high demand for blood donors is noted.

   In January, the Senate will vote on California’s U.S. Blood Donor Nondiscrimination Resolution. This resolution would repeal the current restrictions that prohibit healthy gay and bisexual men from donating blood. Ending these unwarranted discriminatory restrictions would bring millions of healthy people to donate blood, significantly raising the low level of blood supply. (Sources: Redcross.org, blogcritics.org, democrats.assembly.ca.gov)