Orlando massacre prompts call to ease gay blood donor rules

[C C]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/209...nor-rules/

EXCERPT: Blood banks in Orlando have been deluged with donors [...] But in the wake of the shootings [...] some campaigners and researchers have challenged current US guidelines on donation that preclude gay men from giving blood unless they have been celibate for a whole year. [...] “The revised policy is still discriminatory,” says the National Gay Blood Drive in a statement, a group campaigning for relaxation of the FDA guidelines. “While gay and bisexual men will be eligible to donate their blood and help save lives under this 12-month deferral, countless more will continue to be banned solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, and without medical or scientific reasoning.” It added that it favours a system where each donor is assessed individually....

[Magical Realist]

It's a grossly inappropriate stigma that has no business in any part of the medical field. I wasn't even out when I tried to donate blood in the Navy. The questionaire asked: "Have you ever had sex a man." It was outraged. We were checked every year for HIV in the service. There was no reason for this sort of passive-aggressive witchhunt of gay people. So fine I say. You're not ever getting a drop of my blood. Ever!