Life Without Borders

May 23, 2007

Discrimination Still Exists

Checking out the News in the United States today I found out that the FDA is continuing it's ban on gay men donating blood, something that has been in place since 1983 when AIDS and HIV came on the scene. Times have changed and testing has changed and most blood banks can now test for HIV 10 days after infection which really makes the case that the ban should be lifted as statistically gay men tend to donate blood more often.

The last time I donated blood was in 1991, when I tried to do it in 1992 after my first gay experience I was turned away and told in no uncertain terms to not bother coming back. There have been times I've even tried to offer my bone marrow for testing given that my family comes from Western Asia/Southern Europe which is an underrepresented area, but they still turned me down.

Now before you think I'm going to get all Canadian on your ass and speak about how different it is up here, guess again, Health Canada recently reaffirmed it's ban on gay men donating blood, even openly gay Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman, has tried to convince Health Canada and even offered to donate his own blood, but they wouldn't budge.

Some things just don't change I guess.

Posted by Nikolas on May 23, 2007 08:09 PM