By donating blood you can save someone’s life, or someone can save yours.
There is a list of rules and regulations to determine eligibility to donate blood.
The rules and requirements are in place to ensure the blood donations are of a high quality and without any kind of contamination, deficiency or disease.
Among this extensive list of rules and requirements are the requirements that the individual donating blood must never have used intravenous drugs that were not prescribed by a doctor and must not be pregnant.
However, there are certain policies that say that men who have had sex with other men are deferred from donating blood.
These regulations specifically single out gay or bisexual men as not being able to donate blood under the pretext that the human immunodeficiency virus is most prevalent among the community of men who have had sex with other men.
Statistically speaking, it is true that the largest community affected by HIV is the gay and bisexual community.
However, that does not mean this is the only population affected by the disease.
Moreover, it does not take into account the fact that many queer men practice safe sex and are regularly checked for STD’s.
It was documented in 2009 that 52 percent of people living with HIV were men who have had sex with other men.
That means that 48 percent of the population of people living with HIV are not men who have had sex with other men, which is not an ?insignificant percentage.
Presumably, the 48 percent are women and men who have not had sex with other men — research has not made a distinction between homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual women.
All of these populations of men and women are allowed to donate blood, even though they, too, are at risk for contracting HIV.
Men who have had sex with other men are discriminated against in the blood donation process simply because they are part of a population that has statistically shown the highest instances of HIV infection.
I understand the need for the policy, but I also think it needs to be ?reviewed and changed.
Some might think this discrimination would make sense because if this population is at high risk for HIV, allowing them to donate blood would put recipients of blood donations at risk for ?contracting the disease.
However, the Red Cross screens and tests every sample of blood collected for diseases, such as HIV.
A large percentage of people are excluded from helping save lives, purely based on their sexual ?orientation.
In all reality, sexual orientation does not factor into the situation.
This discrimination needs to end so more lives can be saved.
johnstra@indiana.edu
