The American Red Cross is now allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions that specifically single out a person’s sexual orientation or gender, the nonprofit group said Monday.
About time
I didn’t know that was still in place, since they started testing for AIDS decades ago.
I didn’t even know that was happening!
It wasn’t BS, it was required at a time when AIDS was a near-certain death sentence.
Literally can’t even believe that was a thing!
I think it was set up when AIDS was spreading amongst the gay community before they had a test for it.
Of course, now they can both test for it and it spread well beyond the gay community for a while so it’s ridiculous that it was still a thing.
They just removed restrictions for Brits that were in the UK between 1980-1996 too, so I guess they’re just getting around to opening things up and this was on the list.
Why? AIDS was a devestating epidemic. The blood banks were slow to act at all, and as a result many haemophiliacs acquired the disease and died. Gay men were the largest risk group for spreading and contracting it, so it makes sense to screen them out.
I wonder if homophobes will suddenly turn gay after a blood transfusion? /s
Bro that’s not it. It was about AIDS having spread throughout the gay community before testing was feasible.
