Ramon Gardenhire remembers being in law school at Wayne State University in Detroit and trying to give blood for the first time. He went with a group of friends and sat down with the screener.
“I was floored,” says 38-year-old Gardenhire, who finished law school in 2003 and is now vice president of policy for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. “It was the most surreal thing, going to law school and trying to do my civic duty and then hearing that. There have been many times since then when I’ve wanted to give blood but can’t because of who I choose to love.”
Sherer says the latest generation of testing ensures the blood supply is “99.9 percent” safe and prescreened for various infectious diseases including HIV and hepatitis, in a similar fashion to how organs are prescreened before a donation is implanted inside a recipient. While the detection window was once three to six months, Sherer says HIV can now be detected as early as two to four weeks within infection. The National Institutes of Health says in its general guidelines most people will typically develop antibodies within three months, but the “window can vary depending on the HIV test being used.”
In an e-mail interview, Tara Goodin, a press officer with the FDA, said, “At this time there is an adequate supply of blood to meet the need. . . . We empathize with those who might wish to donate, but reiterate that at this time no one who needs blood is doing without it.”
He points to the confusion on Twitter and other public forums where some thought the FDA had lifted its 12-month ban on male gay or bisexual blood donations, only to realize it had not.
And imposing a false sense of security that heterosexual individuals won’t get HIV, Sherer says.
