Unfounded fear is getting in the way of ethical decision making and sound public policy in this country. The gay community continues to be the whipping boy for fear mongers, but everyone suffers when laws are enacted and enforced based on fear.
Take the fact that for the past 27 years men who have engaged in sex with men have been banned from donating blood in the United States. In 1983, at the start of the AIDS crisis, this made sense as a way to prevent the transmission of HIV through blood transfusions. Since then, however, there have been tremendous advances in screening blood and it is next to impossible for any blood with the humane immunodeficiency virus to enter our blood supply. Yet the ban on men who have had sex with men donating blood remains.
Not only does this long outdated policy reduce the nation’s supply of blood, but it has always sent the wrong message: that HIV/AIDS is a “gay disease.” It is not, and never has been, one’s sexual orientation that puts a person at risk for contracting HIV – it is unprotected, high-risk sexual activity, IV drug users sharing needles and, prior to advances in treatment, occasionally through mother to child transmission and breast feeding. Since the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic heterosexuals have contracted the disease, but no one would have ever suggested banning heterosexuals from donating blood.
Last week, 18 U.S. senators called for an end to this discriminatory practice, including Minnesota’s junior senator, Al Franken. The senators cite the support of the American Red Cross, which in 2006 joined other blood banks in calling the policy “medically and scientifically unwarranted.”
The nation’s blood supply is safe from HIV, so why don’t more elected officials call for the lifting of this ban? Why doesn’t the Food and Drug Administration end a policy that no longer serves a purpose? Why don’t our leaders use this as an opportunity to educate the public about the realities of HIV/AIDS rather than creating a false impression that the blood supply is somehow safer because gay men can’t give blood?
