Editorial: Blood banks need not discriminate

Donating blood is perhaps the simplest way to help save lives. It’s free, it’s… Donating blood is perhaps the simplest way to help save lives. It’s free, it’s fast and you will at most have to bear a slight pinch. But some individuals are ineligible to donate. Donors have to be at least 17 years old and weigh at least 110 pounds, but when it comes to restrictions based on lifestyle, gays and lesbians in particular have felt cheated.

Any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 even once is forever banned from donating blood, according to Food and Drug Administration guidelines. The rule, implemented in 1983, was a precaution against allowing HIV-positive individuals to give blood and potentially infect receivers. Now, the FDA is considering overturning this restriction. Many gay-rights groups believe anti-gay and anti-lesbian feelings spurred and perpetuated the ban, and they’re adamantly calling for its removal. Even if the restriction was only an attempt at added caution, it was initiated before crucial testing to detect HIV in donated blood samples existed. But today, donated blood is screened for HIV, making the possibility of a tainted sample much less likely. While there is still reason to be cautious, the blanket ban is a restriction that testing and more appropriate screening should adequately replace.

HIV rates among men who have sex with men are a cause for concern even today. A report that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in March shows that men who have sex with men account for the most new HIV infections in the United States each year. Of the more than 1 million cases of people living with HIV in the United States, nearly half can be attributed to men who have sex with men. Yet, even if the figures hold sway, there is still a sizeable population of uninfected gay and bisexual men without HIV who can’t donate because of their lifestyles.

When the ban was instated, rates of HIV in gay men were exorbitant compared to today’s rates. Male-to-male sexual contact accounted for nearly 80,000 HIV cases in the United States around 1983, according to the CDC. In 2006, male-to-male sex caused an estimated 28,700 cases. In a First World nation like the United States, the need for blood never ends. According to the American Red Cross, every 10 seconds someone receives a blood transfusion. So a dwindling supply could have serious repercussions.

Even if a man has had sex with another man, he could lie during the screening before donating blood that asks about sexual history. In that sense, the ban can already be easily circumvented. But rather than ostracizing an entire group, the pre-screening should instead ask if the male donator has had unprotected sex with another man. All sexual behavior, regardless of orientation, carries real risks, and to limit based only on partner type hampers uninfected donors. Although HIV infection rates are high among gays, homosexual men are far from exclusive carriers of the disease.