A Stitch in Haste

To review: The gay blood ban demands that a male who has ever had sex with another male, even once, be banned for life from donating blood.

Even under normal circumstances, this ban, an FDA policy not vigorously opposed by blood banks, is objectively absurd now that all blood is screened by an essentially foolproof test, and given that a person can determine, within a window of six months, his HIV status. To retain such a ban during a blood shortage reaching crisis levels is absolute insanity.

To allow a gay man who currently tests HIV- and who has engaged in no high-risk activity for at least six months poses such a negligent risk as to be statistically indistinguishable from zero — and is undeniably warranted, in the name of public health, given the value of a pint of blood during a chronic, systemic shortage.

These facts, this scientific truth easily processed by any unbiased observer with a basic intellectual competence, creates something of a moral dilemma among HIV- negative gay men. Knowing that our blood is safe, and knowing that it is desperately needed, do we lie and indicate that we have never had sex with another man (i.e., deny our sexual orientation). Or do we remain honest, to ourselves and to others, thereby allowing ourselves to be banned and resigning ourselves to stand and watch helplessly while the blood shortage persists?

That is a question that every HIV- gay male must answer in the privacy of his own conscience, and is in fact not the point of this post (though all are certainly free to weigh in with comments).

Rather, this is the point of this post:

San Jose State University's decision this week to ban blood drives on the 30,000-student campus over discrimination concerns is drawing a gush of criticism from local blood banks.

Stanford Blood Center officials said they actually agree with San Jose State President Don Kassing that the federal Food and Drug Administration is wrong to prohibit blood donations from gay men.

But in a statement Friday, the center called his decision to suspend campus blood drives for that reason "a terribly misguided tactic that could have a devastating impact on the blood supply, and therefore, patients in our community."

So suddenly the dilemma is no longer confined to the HIV- gay community but reaches to the larger community of the enlightened. Does a major university, presumably committed not only to fair and equal treatment for gays but also (and more importantly) to scientific truth and statistical objectivity, "do the right thing" and forbid blood drives to help effect change, or does it "do the right thing" and facilitate donations by its students — who tend to be a major component of the donor pool — to alleviate the desperate blood shortage here and now? Improve the future or improve the present?

And, more importantly, how much longer are we going to impose these terrible moral dilemmas on ourselves for no legitimate reason whatsoever?

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Meanwhile:

The American Red Cross, the biggest operator of American blood banks, was fined $4.6 million after regulators found it failed to properly screen blood donations. The Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the Red Cross describing the agency's findings, said an agency spokeswoman, Peper Long, in an interview. The penalty followed a agency review of blood that was recalled by the Red Cross, she said. Regulators have now fined the Red Cross more than $20 million since the agency and Red Cross entered into a legal agreement in 2003 allowing penalties for failing to follow federal standards to ensure blood is not contaminated, Ms. Long said.

If the Red Cross has even more reason to screen its blood properly, then there is even less reason to have an overreaching, scientifically unwarranted ban on perfectly qualified donors.