2004 Blood Ban Press Release

College Group Protests Gay Blood BanCork, November 15th. College students will this week begin staging a threeday peaceful protest when the Blood Transfusion Service comes to UCC fortheir blood drive. Every year when the BTS visits UCC, there is a protestto highlight the fact that gay men are banned from giving blood under adraconian measure first put in place 20 years ago.This blood ban stems from an emergency policy at the height of the AIDSpanic around 1985 when the FDA in America imposed a blanket ban on gay mengiving blood. At the time, procedures for screening HIV looked forantibodies for the virus, which could take weeks or months to develop.Policymakers had worried that during this window HIV tainted blood could gothrough the screening process undetected. Today, there are superior testingprocedures so that the window from infection to detection has been cut to 5days.Speaking at the start of this protest UCC LGB Society Auditor Mike Waldroncommented. " While modern testing procedures have increased insophistication and thoroughness, the gay blood ban is still in effect. Inlight of this we feel that the ban is nothing but discrimination,arrogantly veiled as protecting the public. As a result of this we aresending written complaints to the IBTS, the Minister of Health and theEquality Authority""The issue we have is that the gay ban is based on a persons status and notthe acts that may have exposed them to the risk. While risky acts performedby heterosexuals will incur a temporary ban, a gay man will be bannedindefinitely for the same acts. Double standards are at play and thereasons the IBTS gives for this are not in touch with modern day studies."said WaldronHighlighting the stark contrast between the rights of a gay couple andstraight couple, Campaigns Officer Sonya Donnelly stated: "Monogamous gaycouples in long-term stable relationships, who are tested regularly andhave a history of safe sex are barred from donating blood forever. Underthe same policy a single heterosexual female who can have many partners andwho doesn't practice safe sex will not receive the same lifetime ban. Weare asking the IBTS to re-examine their policy and allow healthy and safepeople to donate. "In America in 2002 an FDA vote to overturn the lifetime ban on gay men lostout by one vote: 7-6. The main opposition coming from the American RedCross who some groups such as the Liberty Foundation claim were doing itfor financial and PR reasons. At a meeting of the FDA Blood ProductsAdvisory Committee in September 2000 the American Association of BloodBanks (AABB) and America's Blood Centers (ABC) who together collect morethan half the blood in America, asked for the lifetime ban to be lifted.Auditor Waldon added "Whenever this is brought up on the agenda the IBTSfob it off by pointing to World Health Organisations Reports or talk aboutmost developed countries keeping the ban, but the fact is that the IBTSneed to start moving with the times and accept that there is no need to bangay men for life to maintain the same quality of blood. Other developedcountries are changing their attitudes and so should Ireland. "Speaking about interacting with the IBTS, Campaigns Officer Donnelly stated"We think with the new additions to the board of the IBTS a roundtablediscussion between them and all the gay welfare groups would be aprogressive step for all. Gay blood is safe blood and gay people arehealthy people, this must be recognized."MEDIA CONTACTS--------------Sonya Donnelly <sonya.donnelly@gmail.com> 085 737 8691Diarmuid Angland <diarmuid.a@gmail.com> 087 225 2437