The American Red Cross is now allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions that specifically single out a person’s sexual orientation or gender, the nonprofit group said Monday.
The American Red Cross is now allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions that specifically single out a person’s sexual orientation or gender, the nonprofit group said Monday.
Literally can’t even believe that was a thing!
I think it was set up when AIDS was spreading amongst the gay community before they had a test for it.
Of course, now they can both test for it and it spread well beyond the gay community for a while so it’s ridiculous that it was still a thing.
They just removed restrictions for Brits that were in the UK between 1980-1996 too, so I guess they’re just getting around to opening things up and this was on the list.
Is the UK 1980-96 thing being removed too? That’s cool.
Not just brits btw, but anyone who spent an extended time in the UK in the 80s/90s. IRC due to fears about CJD/Mad Cow’s Disease.
I was stationed in UK and couldn’t donate blood as a result. That was only ten years ago. Since they opened it back up I am getting constant calls to donate.
Why? AIDS was a devestating epidemic. The blood banks were slow to act at all, and as a result many haemophiliacs acquired the disease and died. Gay men were the largest risk group for spreading and contracting it, so it makes sense to screen them out.
It made sense in a crisis situation 40 years ago. It made zero sense the last few years to have such a discriminatory rule that also neglected to prevent risk from heterosexual anal sex.
In my country gay men account for 90% of all HIV infections. It’s very hard to ensure blood is free of HIV, as blood is infectious within three months of infection but won’t test positive