So today I have once again felt the blow of homosexuality. For the most part life for me as a homosexual has not been difficult thus far. I have only been met with prejudices a few times, so experiences like today's are luckily few and far between.
Freescale is sponsoring a bone marrow donor registration drive this week, and as leader for the Awareness and Communications team for EHS, I was responsible for overseeing the awareness piece for this event. I created posters and emails advertising that the blood and tissue center would be on-site for the next three days taking mouth swabs and registering people on the marrow donor list.
I decided that I would stop by on my way out today to see how things were going and take a look at registration requirements. I have been turned down to donate blood before because, yes, I have had sex with another male since 1977. Much to my dismay there was a qualifier on the front page of the pamphlet that said, "if you answer yes to any of the following questions you are ineligible to register at this time." Among these questions were IV drug usage, and a question about if you thought you were at risk for HIV.
I know for a fact that I am clean based on the myriad of tests I do each year to verify just that; however, the final question was asking if I have had sex with another male in the past five years. I shrugged it off and told the representative from the tissue center that I had an important meeting and would be back tomorrow to register (not wanting to divulge in-front of the line of people waiting to signup that I was ineligible based on the questions on the front of the form).
I decided to go home and do a little research to find out exactly how much more at risk homosexuals are for HIV/AIDS. Negating the fact that we only account for ~10% of the population, we contribute to just under half of HIV/AIDS cases in the US, Canada, and Europe. As you may have guessed nearly 75% of cases are in Africa. I'm just puzzled by this. The FDA claims that it's original intent behind amending the Code of Federal Regulations (§ 21 CFR Parts 210, 211, 820, and 1271) was to account for the "window" period of transmission. You know, the whole thing about the disease not being detected for up to 6 months after transmission...
Oddly enough every major blood donor center in the US has urged the FDA to change this restriction to homosexuals who have participated in unprotected sex in the past year. Essentially new testing technologies are not only cheap, but can detect the virus as early as 10-21 days after transmission; hence a year would be more than sufficient. They also argue that blood transfusions require so much prep work, testing, and re-testing that the risk of getting HIV/AIDS is virtually zero.
In 2007, the FDA brought the issue to the table only to eventually decide to uphold the original ruling on the justification that homosexuals are more likely to carry the virus. You know, I really would like to see the statistic on how many of those people contracted it from sexual intercourse or from drug use. I'd bet you would see that homosexual intercourse is not as big a factor as once suspected. It is estimated that the blood/tissue centers lose out on more than 16,000 donations per year due to this rule, imagine how many lives that could save!!
I was very put-off today by this whole thing, the fact that I would spend my time at work to help with this effort (not part of my job description, just out of my own free will), and then be denied registration like that is insulting, and disturbing to think that our own FDA is still so naive and set in their ways. I suppose this is just another indication of how "in the stone-age" our Code of Federal Regulations really are, and how homophobic those that maintain/write them are as well.
As an interesting side note, Gay men are also not allowed to donate sperm...who knew. I just want to be able to tell my coworkers that I donated blood, instead of being asked why I didn't and having to make up an excuse.
Anyway I'm just wondering how many of you would donate blood if this ban was lifted?
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2 comments:
Robert... you should use this as a mechanism for raising awareness at your work and to come out! If someone asks you why you did not give blood, you should consider telling them the truth, that the FDA employs discriminatory practices against gays. It really is sad that in the year 2008, even the medical field cannot overcome its prejudices.
great post, rob; very well done.
i agree with nathan that u should be open with ur co-workers, but i know u have ur reasons and i don't like when people r pushed to come out.
i would def donate blood. i will admit that the idea of being hooked up to a machine that's pumping blood out of me freaks the bejesus out of me (mainly the needle in my arm part). i never donated before having sex with a male and now i regret it. i've always thought my fear was dumb, but now i'm of the mind that the "risk" to me is far outweighed by the good that just a lil blood, bone marrow, ect. can do. i worked 6 or 7 of the campus blood drives for APO and the last one was after i had lost my virginity and it was hard reaching out to people asking them to donate when i knew my blood wouldn't be accepted (assuming i didn't lie to the technicians like some gays do). it was also hard asking men or women i assumed to be gay to donate cuz then they'd say "i can't" or something like that. or i could choose to just ignore them and in the back of my mind wonder if they knew why i didn't ask them or if they cared or maybe even appreciate my feeble attempt at trying to diffuse an awkward situation, kind of like using a meeting as an excuse to leave...
anyways the fda should stop being gleefully ignorant.
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