Mckinley: Gay blood is just as good as straight

The year 1983 brought our nation the moonwalk, the first American woman to travel to outerspace and one of the most memorable NCAA basketball finals of all time. Yet these bright moments were overshadowed by the greater context of a nation just beginning to fear an incredibly horrifying, scientifically confounding virus: AIDS.

The Food and Drug Administration’s ban preventing gay men from donating blood was born during this irrational age of fear. Now, as America advances toward equality for gay individuals both in marriage and within society, the FDA’s ban is merely an outdated policy contaminated by an infectious prejudice against those who are gay. And it’s time for the ban to be lifted.

In the nearly three decades since scientists identified the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause for AIDS, the American public has learned a lot about one of the most frightening health concerns of our time. For one, we no longer refer to it as a “gay cancer.” Yet despite a sizable increase in the general understanding and scientific advances in regard to the treatment, testing and prevention of AIDS, the FDA’s discriminatory policy remains.

Blood donors are asked a series of questions to determine the likelihood that viruses have contaminated their blood. Pitt students who have frequented tattoo parlors or studied abroad in places such as Panama, where malaria is still prevalent, are deferred from giving blood for one year. Those who have recently had heterosexual sex with an HIV-positive partner will also be deferred for one year.

However, heterosexual students who have simply slept with half of the students in their History of Jazz lecture or who have a sexual partner for each flavor of Mad Mex margarita could give blood tomorrow. There are no restrictions on people who practice heterosexual, safe sex, even if it’s with multiple partners.

Meanwhile, men who have had sex with other men — even just once — since 1977 are banned from donating for life. That means the FDA would rather take blood from the guy who leaves Peter’s Pub with a different girl every night than from the gay person who’s been in a monogamous relationship since freshman year. Even people who engage in other high-risk sexual activity, like paying for sex, are allowed to give blood, whereas gay men remain banned.

If the FDA can allow those who engage in high-risk behaviors — like having multiple partners — to donate because testing for HIV has become so efficient, why can’t they apply those same efficient tests to the blood from gay men? Other countries have. In places like Brazil and the United Kingdom, gay men can donate blood if they have not had a new partner within the year, and in Spain and Italy, gay men in monogamous relationships can donate.

The FDA argues that gay men are statistically more likely to test HIV-positive than heterosexual men. So are black women or residents of Washington, D.C., where the prevalence of HIV-positive individuals is comparable to some regions in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet you wouldn’t see a blanket ban on African-American women or residents of the beltway area because it would be outrageously discriminatory.

Blanket bans like this are always discriminatory because they generalize an entire population based on the circumstances of a marginal few. The basic failure of the FDA’s policy, therefore, is that it relies on the misconception that homosexual men are a homogeneous group. They aren’t.

In this country, about 80 percent of American gay men do not have HIV. That means about 2 million gay men are HIV-negative. In fact, one 2010 study found that if the ban were lifted, and gay men followed the same donating patterns as the rest of the population, over 130,000 healthy gay men would likely donate each year. That’s why organizations like the American Red Cross are fighting for the discrimination to end: They need the blood to save lives, and to them, gay blood is as good as any.

As evidenced by blogs and students at a handful of colleges throughout the nation, there is a temptation to fight this discrimination with a historically successful tactic: boycotting.

But to boycott the blood drives on our campus in the coming months would be risking the lives of hundreds of people who rely on blood donation and are relatively powerless in overturning the ban. So instead of protesting by boycotting, if you are eligible, take some time next week on Oct. 23 and donate blood on the first floor of the Union. While the FDA’s shamefully discriminatory policy prevents our healthy gay Pitt community from saving lives, those who can should still donate.

Write Rosie at ram132@pitt.edu