American Red Cross Seeks Blood Donors

It will never cease to amaze me, the U.S. Red Cross needs blood donors. Well, sometimes it's obvious. If there was an inexpensive way to manufacture plasma from scratch, without natural hemoglobin, I'm pretty sure that there would no longer be shortages of blood. The thing that gets me is the discrimination that the FDA/U.S. Red Cross maintains. The blood supply in the United States is screened for all sorts of blood-borne infections and viruses. Yeah, including HIV. Yet, if you are a man willing and physically able to donate blood and you just happen to be sexually active with other men, regardless of your sero-status, you are banned from donating your blood.

I think that the FDA (the government body that oversees the U.S. Red Cross) ought to get over themselves as the morality police and get with the freaking program. I know of many, including myself, who'd donate blood in a heartbeat (no pun, intended) if we were not banned from doing so. Some of my friends have stated to me that I ought to lie about my homosexuality, so I can donate blood.

My response to those statements was and remains a flat "NO". When I came out, it put an end to the lies I told and it put an end to the constant attempts to hide myself amongst the general population. To renounce, even temporarily, my homosexuality would undo the trials and tribulations that I have endured and enjoyed about myself for the last twenty-three (23) years.

Besides, if the FDA refuses to lift the ban, then the Red Cross must not really be all that desperate for blood products.

So Sayeth Das Behr