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The donation ban dates back to 1983, when we didn’t even know what HIV was, and it’s estimated that lifting it would increase the country’s blood supply by over half a. We’re in a period where we need to make it as easy as possible for people to help others, not making things harder. It sounds like a cruel joke, but it’s truewith all we know about HIV, blood, science and medicine, gay men still can’t donate blood for no good reason at all. Much like the unemployment systems currently overwhelmed by claims and relying on old coding, the lack of funding, infrastructure, and training is making it harder to save lives and help people and it’s not just frustrating, it’s disgraceful. And a single blood donation can go into the arms of three different people, the American Red Cross. Men who had been excluded from donating blood for out-dated and homophobic reasons, still wanted to, and they’re still getting refused because the systems in place and the FDA are so old and poorly run. Gay men still can’t donate, tweeted Jared Polis, a Democratic congressman who’s gay. According to current policies, people can donate blood if it has been at least 3 months since they last had sex with a male who has sex with other males. After the easing of the gay blood ban earlier this month, gay and bisexual men headed to blood donation centers to donate, or in the case of some men, like Lukus Estok, who had recovered from coronavirus, went to hospitals like Cedar Sinai, which were seeking the blood of recovered coronavirus patient to develop treatments. Another excuse is that centers haven’t trained staff to, I guess, not immediately turn away gay men? Hold up in forms and systems are such an immensely bureaucratic frustration. Canadian Blood Services is taking the first steps to allowing gay and bisexual men who have sex with men which it calls the gbMSM community to donate blood plasma, which is starting in two. And not just blood donation for hospitals that sorely need them, but in cases where gay men have recovered from coronavirus and their blood could be used in essential trials to fight the disease those donations are being turned away too.Īccording to NBC News, gay men in New York, and in fact, across the country, have been turned away from donating blood and plasma, because despite the new regulations and a national health emergency, the systems used by donation centers and organizations like the Red Cross have not been updated. The easing of the so-called “gay blood ban” was a positive step in the right direction, but the reduction of the window for men “refraining” from sex with other men from twelve months to three months still amounted to a de facto ban on donations from any gay and bisexual men.Īnd now, news has emerged that gay and bisexual men are still encountering problems with donating blood, not just because of the regulations. Earlier this month, the FDA changed the regulations regarding blood and plasma by men who had sex with men. A ban on gay men giving blood in France was initially put in place in 1983 due to the risk of the transmission of HIV/AIDS.