Gay men angry at exclusion from blood drives following killings at Orlando club

Yoder, at 31, is young and healthy, but as a gay man, he’s currently banned from giving blood.

“The LGBT community is like family — and it feels like I can’t help my family right now," he said.

The sentiment has reverberated throughout the gay community in the aftermath of Sunday's massacre at the Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people and wounded 53 others.

Blood centers near Orlando put out a call for help, echoed by facilities in other states. Millions of gay men, despite a willingness to give, haven't been allowed to answer the call.

In 1983, at the height of the AIDS crisis, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration barred blood donations from any man who has had sex with another man — even once — since 1977.

The FDA formally lifted the ban 10 days ago, reducing the moratorium to a year’s celibacy. The new policy has yet to take effect in Indiana and most states, and it likely won’t until mid-August due the complexity of rolling out new rules.

The situation has proved frustrating for healthy gay men in committed, monogamous relationships who say the rules for heterosexuals aren’t nearly as tough.

“Giving blood is one of the few things you can do that makes you feel like you’re really doing something,” said Scott Schoettes, an attorney with Lambda Legal, an advocacy group that calls the FDA's policies unnecessarily discriminatory.

Schoettes and others — including advocates with the American Medical Association and the American Association of Blood Banks — have called for the FDA to move away from a ban based solely on sexual orientation.

Instead, they said, the government should restrict donations based on behavior, such as those placed on intravenous drug-users or overseas travelers exposed to the Zika virus.

Jason Hinson-Nolen, head of the advocacy group Indy Pride, called the rules antiquated and harmful to the gay community.

“It compounds the fear and anger that people are already feeling,” he said.

Hinson-Nolen helped organize a blood donation drive at Indy Pride's headquarters in downtown Indianapolis on Tuesday. Members barred from donating because of their sexual orientation were asked to invite a friend or family member to donate blood in their name.

The response was overwhelming, with more donors than volunteers could handle.

Hinson-Nolen said attention to the FDA ban, brought on by the Orlando shooting, raises important policy questions that have been too long ignored.

“There is some good that can come out of tragedy,” he said.

The FDA said Tuesday it has no current plans to loosen the new requirement that gay men remain celibate for one year before being allowed to donate blood.

But Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, left open the door for more change when issuing the one-year moratorium last December.

“We will continue to actively conduct research in this area and further revise our policies as new data emerge," he said.

Dr. Dan Waxman, medical director of the Indiana Blood Bank, said that may happen with improvement in testing for HIV and other blood-borne diseases.

When Waxman began his career in transfusion medicine 30 years ago, tests to detect HIV antibodies in the blood system took six months. Someone with the virus that causes AIDS could give blood without knowing they were infected.

The FDA's rules, aimed at stopping the transmission of HIV in the nation’s blood supply, appeared to work. HIV transmission rates from blood transfusion fell from 1 in 2,500 cases to 1 in 1.47 million, according to the FDA.

But its ban remained in place long after HIV rates dropped among gay men and started growing in the heterosexual population.

Diagnostic tests have improved, as well. HIV can now be detected in the blood within six to nine days, Waxman said.

LGBT advocates note that heterosexual blood donors are not held to the same standards.

Those who have unprotected sex with multiple partners may still give blood, and they generally aren't required to wait before doing so.