FDA Weird

I was in a meeting a few weeks ago when someone announced a blood drive was underway to help build holiday supplies of emergency blood. I tossed out a comment that it was too bad not all donors were welcome. That comment earned a few stares and questioning looks. I responded that gay people were not able to donate blood.

They were disbelieving. But the truth is that the FDA in 1983 issued a policy that no man who had sex with another man from 1977 to present was able to donate blood. The fear then and now is that same sex behavior among men harbors HIV virus and the spread of AIDS.

What it really does is continue to feed the myths and fears that make up the AIDS stigma. Of course that stigma washes over all gay men. It also unintentionally affects gay women.

What it should include are intravenous drug users but I don’t know if that is covered by other FDA policies. If not, it should. Don’t you think?

Well, switch to December 23, 2014. The FDA revised its blood donor rules to include gay men who have not had sexual relations with another man for at least 12 months.

I get it. To a bureaucrat this adjustment in policy is huge. But I would ask that same bureaucrat if he would consider giving up sex for a year before he were allowed to donate blood or anything else?

The stigma remains.

Science should be the controller of this policy. Science scrubs blood components of disease before it is passed on for use in medical procedures. Science provides the protocols that address the larger issues as well. Science is at work. It is protecting each and every one of us. It is capable of making mistakes from time to time, but for the most part it is doing a great job.

But gay? HIV/AIDS? Specter and pandemic? Hideous and all-encompassing fear?

I guess the science is shelved. Human emotion rules the universe of policy at the FDA. And at too many government offices.

Yes. The stigma remains. And it has nothing to do with AIDS transmission.

Poof to the FDA and its minions. And the politics that allow this to happen.

December 26, 2014