I was walking from my car in the parking lot, and I saw a blood drive van. I walked in and filled out the forms, but when it came to be weighed, I was a half pound too light to qualify, since they subtract two pounds from your weight to account for clothing. I was considering going off and having a big lunch before coming back, but I was deferred for the rest of the day.
While this isn't a big deal for me- I can just make sure that next time I have a bigger breakfast- I think about how horrible it would be if I was forbidden to donate blood for something more permanent.
Currently, it is a felony for a man who has ever had sexual contact with another man since the '70's, to donate blood. This is because gay men are at a higher risk of contracting HIV. While it is a good thing that the Blood Bank wishes to ensure the safety of those who will receive blood transfusions, this policy seems a bit like discrimination.
There are plenty of fast, easy, and relatively inexpensive field tests for HIV that can be used to ensure that the donor does not have HIV. It is also possible for a gay man to be evaluated by a doctor to ensure that he does not have HIV. Yet despite these easy solutions, gay men are still exempt from giving blood.
Last year, Sonoma State University considered banning the Blood Bank from its campus because of this policy. However, the final verdict was that it was they had right idea, but the only victim of banning the Blood Bank would be innocent patients who need transfusions.
There is no doubt that something needs to be done about this policy, but sadly gay rights have not progressed much over the past few decades. Perhaps some day this policy will be reconsidered, since there would undoubtedly be more blood for those in need if it was revoked.
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2 comments:
It's a privilege to give blood, not a right, and as such, the blood bank has the right to disallow people from giving blood for any reason they so desire.
My mom can't donate blood because she was in Germany when Mad Cow Disease first broke out. She never got it, but blood banks don't want to take that risk.
Same thing applies with gay men. Higher chance of HIV, so you can't donate blood.
I believe in social egalitarianism just as much as any other reasonable person, but blood banks especially need to have standards and guess what, this is one of them that they enforce. It's no more discriminatory than them saying people who weigh above or below a certain limit can't donate or people who have done drugs.
Egalitarianism is nice, but when this blood can save or destroy a life, we need to enforce strict standards.
That's true, but the fact is that there are many cheap, fast, and easy field tests for HIV that can be given. Mad Cow Disease is a prion disease, and the only way to test for it is to cut in to someone's brain and see if its turning in to Swiss cheese. HIV testing is different.
Doctors are able to tell if someone is safe to give blood. And anyway, there is always the possibility that people are lying about their medical history, so they test the blood you give anyway. If sufficient testing was done to ensure the safety of the blood given, it would only benefit those in need to allow homosexual men to give blood.
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