Northern California Colleges Lead Opposition to Blood Donation Rules
Several colleges in Northern California have banned campus blood drives, arguing that FDA's lifetime ban on donations from men who have had sex with men violate the schools' nondiscrimination policies, NPR's "All Things Considered" reports.
However, blood bank officials warn that ending campus blood drives could compromise blood banks' ability to maintain adequate supplies of blood, and some health care advocates maintain that FDA's policy is warranted.
In a written statement, FDA maintained that eliminating the ban on donations from MSM would increase the possibility of HIV infection through blood donations because of MSM's increased risk for HIV.
The segment includes comments from:
- Cathy Bryan of Works With Blood Collection, Northern California;
- Rick Luttmann, a professor at Sonoma State University who authored the campus' ban on blood drives;
- David Magnus, director of Stanford University's Center for Biomedical Ethics;
- Glenn Mones of the National Hemophilia Foundation; and
- A recent graduate of UC-Berkeley (Varney, "All Things Considered," NPR, 6/11).