The NHS hopes that the scheme will encourage new donors to give blood and will prompt existing donors to donate on a regular basis.
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Jerry Swarbrick was planning on donating blood even before Sunday’s shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando left 49 club goers dead, and 53 more wounded.
Though response from the public has been huge, sexually active gay and bisexual men are still barred from donating.
United blood services says on the day of the shooting they were told to fly units of blood to Orlando for those in the hospital. She’s a gay woman and thinks gay men should be allowed to donate blood too. The worst sufferers are the poor who run from pillar to post for blood and pay heavily for it. Safe blood supplies are still a scarce commodity especially in developing countries despite about 92 million yearly blood donations worldwide.
In the 1980s, gay men were banned completely from donating blood at the height of the HIV/Aids crisis.
Another tweet, from Brian Gerald Murphy, co-creator of activist group Legalize Trans, urged the FDA to change its policy on blood donations.
World Blood Donor Day has been celebrated annually since 2004, with the aim of improving the safety and adequacy of National Blood supplies.
“Traditionally, The American Red Cross hasn’t served the hospitals in that area but we have made the blood that has been in reserves available for the incident”, said McConnell.
Some, like Martin said it’s still not enough. They say donations are a constant need.
“It also perpetuates the stigma that HIV and AIDS are gay diseases which they are not”, said Novakowski.
“I chose to come in on my rounds and give a unit of blood today”, said Schafer.
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Many of those in line were gay men – unaware that the Food and Drug Administration’s ban on accepting blood donations from such individuals had not been lifted in the aftermath of the crisis, he said. “It’s going to be rooted in the advice we’re getting from scientists at the FDA”.
