Advisors for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will have a meeting next week to discuss of its plausible to lift the 30-year old ban that prohibits gay men from donating blood. Critics of the ban, including members of the Congress say that the meeting is a hope for homosexuals and a step in promoting equality.
Discrimination against gay men has been an issue for years. December 1 is World AIDS Day and it is an avenue to raise awareness among people regarding HIV and to commemorate those who have died from AIDS. In was once called the "gay-related immune deficiency" because when it emerged in 1977, it commonly affected gay men.
Now, the world has a clearer view and understanding of the disease. It is no longer considered a disease of gay men. All gay men are banned from donating blood because of the risks and social stigma. However, things will soon change, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
According to Ryan James Yessak, an LGBT activist who founded National Gay Blood Drive, ""We've got the ball rolling. I feel like this is a tide-turning vote. There have been a lot of feet dragging and I think they're realizing it now."
It was in 1983 that the ban was enacted during the peak of national AIDS epidemic and was updated in 1992. Many critics say it is high time to think things over, analyze the bill and enact appropriate measures to properly disseminate information about the disease so the social stigma against gay men will be removed.
The American Red Cross and America's Blood Centers praised the move of FDA and the congress. They called the ban as "medically and scientifically unwarranted".
Meanwhile, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, by the end of 2010, 56 percent of all HIV-infected persons were gay or bisexual. This is the reason why FDA took precautions from acquiring blood donations from these men who are at a high risk in contracting the disease. For some of them, they might not even know they are sick.
The FDA, if the deferral period is effective, will eventually take longer to test the blood in order to make sure that they are free from infectious diseases like HIV. A study found out that blood donations from gay men would increase the blood supply by 615,300 pints per year, thus saving 1.8 million lives. Bans have already been lifted or altered in Mexico, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Japan, and Canada.
