Visit the American Red Cross website. It will tell you that every two seconds, someone is in need of a blood transfusion. While hospitals across the country continue their battles with blood shortages, the American Red Cross last week completed yet another successful blood drive at Dartmouth. Hundreds of students, professors and local residents volunteered to give their blood and their time to help save lives. Fortunately, organizations like the American Red Cross and others collect annually over 15 million units of blood, a substantial step in the direction of satisfying the needs of patients across the country. Unfortunately, the federal policy on blood donor eligibility is one of bias and exclusion.
According to a 1985 Food and Drug Administration policy, potential male donors are ineligible to give blood if there is evidence that they have engaged in homosexual activity since 1977. The administration's rationale is that male homosexuals are at higher risk of contracting and transmitting HIV than heterosexual males. This policy, formulated on the now draconian world view that coined HIV/AIDS as a "gay disease" in the early 1980s, not only dehumanizes and discriminates against homosexuals, but runs counter to the very notion of public health. Beginning in 1985, the American Red Cross has tested all donated blood for HIV/AIDS, and since then three new tests, the HIV-1/2 Antibody test, the HIV-I p24 Antigen test and the nucleic acid test have been put in place to ensure the safety of all donated blood. Consequently, the notion of homosexuals as being more susceptible to transmitting HIV/AIDS is rendered irrelevant.
Yet, despite these increased safety measures, homosexual men are still perceived as dangerous. The stigma associated with gay men as being deviant, sexually driven, AIDS-stricken predators pervades federal blood policy; as a result, societal notions of "normality" and "health" are codified in federal law. The resultant heterosexism is unfortunate, to say the least: While nearly five million people are in need of blood transfusions each year, millions of eligible donors are excluded from the process based only on the gender of their sexual partners. Homosexual men are categorized along with I.V. drug users and prostitutes, those that also might have "high-risk" behaviors.
A popular argument is that there is no way to tell if someone is, in fact, gay, and therefore one needs not to disclose his or her sexual preference during the screening process. This concept is tantamount to repressive self-censorship -- why must one jump back in "the closet" in order to give blood? Sexual expression is a right for which men, gay or straight, have fought countless legal and social battles. Sexuality is a personal matter, yet one that can and should be expressed in the public sphere. The FDA's policy reinforces existing stereotypes and furthers a trend of sexual discrimination.
Perhaps it is not an all or nothing choice. According to a 2000 government study, approximately 8 percent of gay men have HIV/AIDS, compared to a much smaller percentage for heterosexual men. Statistically, the HIV infection rate is higher among gay men than straight men. This does not mean, however, that all gay men should be excluded. Perhaps the answer lies within the screening process. The questioning should be tailored to more specific high-risk behavior, such as questions about unprotected sex, or whether or not one has been recently tested for HIV/AIDS. All behavior is self-reported, and as a result the process is inherently prone to lying; this does not, however, preclude the possibility of more focused screening.
In the time that it has taken to read this article, depending on one's level of distraction or focus, 90 new people are in need of blood. It is more than a question of discriminatory policy at hand, it is a matter of national welfare. All people, man or woman, straight or gay, have the potential to fall ill, and be in need of a blood transfusion. All people should be able to help.