1y ago

Red Cross ends blood-donation restrictions that singled out gay and bisexual men

www.cnbc.com Red Cross ends blood-donation restrictions that singled out gay and bisexual men

The FDA in May dropped a nearly 40-year policy that had singled out men who have sex with men.

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.

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And it only took... checks notes 40 years!
- Technically still waiting on it to happen. If you've had anal sex, you still have to wait 3 months. So they are still discriminating against most MSM.
  
  No, it isn't. Anal sex is a known high risk factor for STDs and infections. It also applies to everyone, not just gay/bi men.
  
  Not really, it specifies "new partners," which is completely fair. People lie, and it allows time for symptoms to show up so the red cross doesn't end up wasting resources. I don't really know how they'd work out polycules unless they add a monogamous restriction. The three months it's about safety since they are dealing with blood.
- You know why it started, right?
  
  You know HIV has been screenable for most of those 40 years, right?
  
  To be a bigot? And to discriminate? That's your rationale to ban people?

Goddammit! I have o- blood and the red cross called me LITERALLY everyday after I donated the first time. I asked them to only call every quarter because I still did want to donate, but that just made them call every other day. Finally out of frustration I looked for anything that would make me ineligible to donate and the next time they called, I told them I was gay. All calls stopped after that.
- I found that making an appointment, no matter how far in the future makes them stop calling.
  I donate plasma (AB+) as often as I can, usually 2 weekly as that is the limit here. But if you're single the 4 month halt for having sex with a new partner is annoying because they will keep calling while they say you can't donate.
- Maybe donate your highly sought after blood and they won't call so much
  
  How about they not call every single day when you're only allowed to donate every couple months or so or, you know, you'd fucking die
  
  Trust me, this method did not work. I have donated blood 10+ times (Which isn't a crazy amount, but I think it's probably more than most people) because I know with universal donor blood it's really valuable. But when you donated blood yesterday and they call you wanting more it can get pretty annoying...

Great, now I can move forward with my plan of turning everyone gay by donating blood
- Convert 10 or more and you get a new toaster oven!
- God speed 🫡
- Can I just get a little blood? I don't want to go full gay, I just want to be able to tell which sneakers I should wear with this outfit.
- not if you like having sex. lol

Cue right wingers refusing transfusions. Actually, that's fine.
- Blood is blood is blood. I'm sure that people who need it don't care if an absolute bigoted moron gave it to them, they wouldn't know anyways.
  Edit: I'm the moron, you meant refusing taking blood, not giving it lmao
  
  We should make it known to these people that it's 'gay blood' though. What they do with their own body is up to them because I support bodily autonomy, including dying of bigotry.
  
  The rule was very necessary in the 80s. It vast majority of HIV-infected individuals were gay and bisexual men. However, those days are long gone, and we can test blood pretty well for even very low levels of HIV nowadays.

Maybe this is a cynical take, but will conservatives refuse a life saving blood transfusion because it may have come from a gasp gay man? I mean a bunch were refusing transfusions because the blood could have come from someone that had a gasp covid vaccine.
- There are people who refuse blood transfusions because of relious beliefs and will let their children die. Of course there are some that would refuse "gay blood."
- @DocMcStuffin @MicroWave
  If they want to do that, fine. They just won't get any blood or blood products.
  Problem solved.
- That sounds almost like the intention?
- Frankly dude, the amount of people, even fairly right-wing people who will be preoccupied with this is teeny tiny. I'm sure they exist but it's a negligible amount of people. The person obsessed with stereotyping these people is you.

Conservatives might be getting some of that gay blood. Does that work the same as eating the heart of a warrior to gain their power?
- Yes, but instead of becoming more powerful, you become more fabulous.
  
  Sign me up! Sound like A-positive to me!

Under the new guidelines, anyone who has recently had sex with a new partner or multiple people and has also had anal sex would have to wait three months to donate
Those taking oral medication to prevent HIV infection, called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, still have to wait three months from their last dose to donate blood. People taking long-acting PrEP injections have to wait two years before donating.
- Also note that the Red Cross is usually quick to say it's actually the FDA that imposes these homophobic restrictions and it's "not their fault"
  
  They said the same thing in Austria: "not our fault, the government agencies make these rules!"
  And the government agencies would be like "well, we want to change the rules, but the Red Cross tells us not to!"
  Took us to have a left-wing green health minister to pressure them enough.
  The finally implemented the changes last year, sounds like it is 1:1 the same rules like you guys have now.
- Darn, so straight people having anal raw dog gang bangs can no longer donate soon after experiencing a DVDA? How is that fair? /s

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.
- 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

I didn't know that was still in place, since they started testing for AIDS decades ago.

About time

I didn’t even know that was happening!
- It wasn't BS, it was required at a time when AIDS was a near-certain death sentence.

In 2023. Unbelievable.

how the hell have we reached a point as a society where people would rather literally fucking die than get life saving blood from someone who thinks differently from them?
- This started off when HIV was much more prominent in the gay and bisexual male population than anyone else. The Red Cross, among other organizations, decided it was better to just deny blood from gay and bi males than to check all their samples for HIV. Similarly, you can't give blood if you were in certain locations in the '80s and '90s due to potential exposure to Mad Cow Disease. At this point, while HIV is still somewhat more prevalent in that demographic, rates have gone down significantly and HIV has spread to the other demographics. It's also easier to test for than it was then. Repealing these restrictions was proposed quite some time ago and didn't face any real pushback, but bureaucracy is going to bureaucracy, so it's taken years to get this settled.
  
  It wasn't the Red Cross, it was the FDA. This article phrases it as the Red Cross loosening restrictions because the FDA ended the ban in May, and the Red Cross's own procedural bureaucracy is just now catching up.
  
  Person who lived in Europe in the early 90s here. Couldn’t give blood until earlier this year due to the Mad Cow restrictions.
- Bigots just assume the blood is always gonna be there. They don't think as deeply as you credit them for

- Lol. Healthiest worldview.
- Must be fun in your head

I wonder if homophobes will suddenly turn gay after a blood transfusion? /s
- Bro that's not it. It was about AIDS having spread throughout the gay community before testing was feasible.
  
  Testing methods are still inadequate, as blood may test negative whilst infectious in the first three months

90 comments