Over the past few weeks, I’ve received a couple dozen calls from the Red Cross. They've only called while I’m at work or in class, and have never left a message, but I finally got the chance to pick up and talk this past week. A friendly woman on the other side of the call told me her name and recited from a script, informing me of an urgent need for my blood type. I politely informed her that I wasn’t eligible to donate blood and asked her to remove me from her contact list. A few sentences and a goodbye later, I was off of the Red Cross’s radar.
Had I gotten that call a couple years ago, I would’ve gladly donated blood as soon as possible. I used to be a Red Cross Life Member and spent quite a bit of time in the donation chair, ate a ton of cookies, and circulated plenty of bags of blood. I loved the feeling of giving back and helping people who needed it by doing something as simple as sitting in a chair for fifteen minutes or so. But for almost a year now, I haven't been allowed to donate.
For anyone familiar with the blood donation process, there are certain eligibility requirements that donors. One specifically focusing on gay and bisexual men, or men who have had sexual contact with men (MSM), requires that donors must not have had sexual contact with another male in the past 12 months. Following this logic, a man in a monogamous relationship with another man is not eligible, but a man or woman who has been in sexual contact with numerous people of various STD and HIV risk levels is still fine to donate on those grounds.
The original ban on MSMs began in the late '80s as a response to the AIDs epidemic. Gay and bi men were completely forbidden from donating blood out of fear of transferring HIV through blood donations. Times have changed, though. Fast forward 30 years. Last year in Orlando, 49 innocent people were shot to death in a nightclub, and many more were injured and in need of blood. People from all over the area were ready and willing to donate, many members of the LGBT+ community. But because of this donor restriction, they were turned away despite the desperate need for blood.
This donor restriction is not only discriminatory but also prevents people who very much need blood from getting it. In Italy, this sort of restriction has been stripped away. Instead, they take each potential donor through an individual and personalized risk interview, not unlike the preliminary donation interview the Red Cross does currently. Although MSMs are now allowed to donate if they pass the risk interview, there has been no notable increase in HIV infections.
It’s time the US does the same. Blood undergoes 13 different tests after being donated. That in conjunction with an individual risk interview like those in Italy would keep blood recipients completely safe, and welcome a massive number of newly eligible donors into the donor pool.
