Pittsburgh, PA– At Monday’s City Council meeting, Councilman Dan Gilman will introduce a Will of Council that urges the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA to re-evaluate discriminatory policies around blood, organ, and tissue donations. These polices should be updated to meet current scientific standards, to ensure safety in the process, and to allow for a larger pool of donors to help with the organ, blood, and tissue shortage crisis.
Every day in the United States, 43,200 people need life-saving blood transfusions, and the increasing gap between the number of available donors and those in need is reaching crisis levels. Unfortunately, outdated policy turns away gay and bisexual men from being a full part of the donor pool. Lifting even just the blood donation ban could increase the blood supply to 219,000 pints of blood, which could save more than 650,000 lives annually. These discriminatory bans on donation are as based on 1970s-era misconceptions rather than valid medical concerns, and should be re-evaluated immediately.
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Photo from Project Negative.