Gay Men BANNED from
Blood Donation
Back in the 1980’s there was a disease epidemic sweeping the nation. It was claiming lives and destroying families wherever it went. When word first reached the FDA they thought that it was a new cancerous mutagen but it soon spread much farther than the original affected groups. MSM, which is the medical shorthand for men who have sex with men, were the most affected people in documented cases at the beginning of the outbreak. People were mistrustful and scared because no one knew where this disease
when cut because they do not have the means of blood-clotting that people without the disorder have. It was common back then for hemophiliacs to get multiple blood transfusions a month. At that time it was common practice for hemophiliacs to be treated using a blood mix of up to 20,000 donors. Now because doctors and high up medical personal were being pressured to act on treatingthis epidemic and so far their only lead was the blood transfusions and homosexual men so they
came from or how to stop it. They didn’t even know if they could stop it. As I said though, the disease was spreading much farther than that of the original affected parties so people needed to do something and fast. There was a mad dash to try and find both how this disease was transmitted and how to cure it.
did something in 1983 that could be called rash and unhelpful but was one of their only options at the time. They banned homosexual men from ever donating blood in the United States again.
At the time no one could blame them, people were panicking and dying and they did the only
While this was happening, more people were being infected. Men, women, children, straight people, gay people, it didn’t matter what you were anymore because everyone was being infected. Panic, grief and fear were the new day to day emotions. Then doctors started to notice something strange, while the disease spread there seemed to be two groups being the most heavily affected; homosexual men and hemophiliacs. Hemophiliacs are people who have a disorder that causes massive bleeding
thing they could do without other treatment options. But then things progressed. It was a slow and grueling process full of failure and many more deaths but things got better; treatment that worked was being proposed and tested, then different treatments were proposed and tested, then finally a way to detect early stages of the disease was created. Since the 80’s many things have come to help contain and treat this disease and it’s precursor, now known as AIDS and HIV respectively. We still have not found a cure but the spread has lessened and the panic has faded.
The thing that is troubling though, is that while