How the ban began. In 1983, as the AIDS epidemic began to grip the nation, the Food and Drug Administration enacted a total ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men in an attempt to keep the HIV virus out of the blood supply. Is the blood from a gay man really that much more tainted and possibly dangerous than others? It’s an assumption that has been in place for over 30 years - but it also exposes a troubling fear of gay men that may have been in place even longer. The deferral period should be no longer than 30 days.” When a slightly less restrictive policy was issued, Dan Bruner, the senior director of policy at Washington, DC’s longstanding HIV clinic, Whitman-Walker Health, released a similar statement: “The updated policy is still discriminatory and not rooted in the reality of HIV testing today.
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“We find ourselves in a situation where the victims directly affected by this tragedy and in need of lifesaving blood are the very people banned from donating it,” the grassroots advocacy organization National Gay Blood Drive posted on its website. The tragedy in Orlando has brought to surface a medical directive that some call entrenched homophobia.
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It’s a ban that has been in place since the ’80s, a ban which many say is as groundless and outdated as sodomy laws. Certain segments of the population are banned from giving blood, foremost among them sexually active gay and bisexual men. There are false reports circulating that FDA rules are being lifted. Initial reports from several respected news sites indicated that OneBlood would be welcoming all blood donors, but hours later on that tragic Sunday, OneBlood tweeted a correction: Sadly, one of OneBlood’s own employees, Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, was one of the victims. With 49 people killed and 53 people injured in the shooting, members of the LGBTQ community rallied to donate at OneBlood, Central Florida’s largest not-for-profit blood donation center. But that is just what happened last week after the shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando.
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Nothing rubs salt in the wounds of tragedy like bigotry or bureaucracy - or both. Emily Pidgeon/TED Homophobia and mass shootings are afflictions that won’t be solved overnight - but the problematic and outdated restrictions against gay blood donors could be.