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Urge Your Representative to Co-Sign a Letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to End the Ban on Gay Blood Donations!Call Today, June 7, 2010!
The Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability (ACBSA) is planning to review the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decades-long ban on blood donation by any man who has had sex with another man since 1977.
FDA’s current blood donor eligibility policies are largely inconsistent, imposing significantly less restrictions on heterosexual men and women who engage in high-risk sexual behavior, yet banning gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) who are HIV-negative, consistently practice safe sex, or are in monogamous, long-term relationships. This policy reinforces inaccurate stereotypes about gay men and HIV, and results in a significant loss of healthy blood donors.
The advent of new HIV testing technologies, which can detect HIV directly and have a window period of only 9-11 days after infection, has provided scientific and technological reasons to reconsider the policy. In the face of chronic blood shortages in the nation’s blood supply, the unnecessary exclusion of large numbers of HIV-negative blood donors may harm patients in need of blood transfusions.
The ban on all gay, bisexual and other MSM from donating blood is discriminatory and contributes unecessarily to ongoing stigma and homophobia.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Your Representative needs to hear from you today. Deadline for sign-ons is Tuesday, June 8 at noon EST. Help end this discriminatory ban!
1. Call toll-free to urge your Representative to sign-on: 1.800.828.0498. When you reach the Capitol Switchboard, ask to be connected to your House Representative. If you have trouble getting through with the toll-free number, you can use the regular switchboard number: 1.202.224.3121
Call your rep and say:
“My name is _____ and I’m a constituent from (city/state). I’m calling to ask you to co-sign the letter to HHS urging the FDA to lift the ban on gay blood donations. The current ban is discriminatory and medically and scientifically unnecessary. Sign the letter today to help increase our nation's blood supply.”
2. Please forward this information to everyone you know.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TAKE ACTION TODAY - TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE - TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
