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Revise the FDA’s Lifetime Ban On Gays Donating Blood

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Today, we are participating in a blogswarm with AMERICABlog, AKAWilliam.com, Bilerico Project, Blabbeando, Change.org, DailyKos, Firedoglake-The Seminal, Good As You, Joe Mirabella, LGBTPOV, Mike Signorile, OpenLeft and Rod 2.0. We are asking you to submit a public comment in support of revising the discriminatory and medically unwarranted FDA lifetime ban on blood donations from any man who has had sex with another man (MSM) since 1977.

I believe our top priority is to keep the nation’s blood supply safe and full. Banning one segment of the population does not accomplish this, in fact, it reduces the amount of blood that can be accessed.

Additionally, I remember facing challenging questions years ago while working in a stringent corporate environment about why I wasn’t donating blood. These unwarranted segregationist practices are inhumane and ineffective.

Lastly, a quick but heartfelt thanks to Adam Bink of OpenLeft.com for organizing this action!

I hope you’ll participate!

Today, the HHS Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability is kicking off a two-day meeting to reconsider the FDA ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men (MSM). The current policy has been in place since 1985 when no HIV testing was available and little was known about HIV/AIDS. Since then, while many policies towards blood donations have changed, and HIV testing has significantly advanced to the point where a permanent ban no longer makes sense, the ban still remains in place. The ban is also discriminatory in that it unfairly targets gay and bisexual men because it does not distinguish between high-risk and low-risk MSM, banning potential MSM donors who are HIV-negative and consistently practice safe sex or are in long-term monogamous relationships, while others with a significantly higher risk of HIV infection are subject to less restrictive deferrals or none at all. The ban also contributes to a dangerously and chronically low blood supply in a country in which approximately just 5% of all eligible donors give.

The NYC and DC City Councils have recently passed resolutions by votes of 42-1 and 13-0, respectively, urging a revision of the ban. Today, we are asking that you join their voices in calling for a more sensible policy.

Dr. Jerry Holmberg is the Executive Secretary of the Advisory Committee, and is tasked with accepting formal public comments from both organizations and individuals. He has made his e-mail available for this purpose. Please take a minute to e-mail Dr. Holmberg via jerry.holmberg@hhs.gov and urge him and the committee to revise the ban on blood donations from MSM.

In writing the note, you can use the facts we have listed below, a form letter we’ve put together at the bottom of this list post that summarizes the rationale for ending the ban, a personal note- or all of the above! These public comment periods exist because good government means advocates should have a chance to weigh in. Now’s our chance to demonstrate that members of the public support sound science, non-discrimination, and a healthier America.

Please take a minute to tell Dr. Holmberg and the Committee that you support these principles by sending an e-mail to jerry.holmberg@hhs.gov. Urge a revision of the policy that incorporates sound medical, scientific, and non-discriminatory guidelines.

The additional reasons you can cite are below.

  • Newer tests have shortened the window period in which HIV is undetectable to between 9 and 11 days. A permanent, lifetime ban is outdated and no longer makes sense.
  • The U.S. blood supply is frequently at critically low levels. Less than 5% of all eligible donors give, while donation recipients include mothers delivering babies, trauma victims, cancer patients, transplant patients and others. The respected Williams Institute estimates that lifting the ban would result in an estimated 130,150 additional donors who are likely to donate 219,000 additional pints of blood each year, while shortening deferral to one year would result in 53,269 additional men who are likely to donate 89,716 pints each year.
  • The ban is a form of discrimination by unfairly targeting men who have sex with men, or effectively the gay and bisexual community. A permanent, blanket ban is instituted on any male who has had sex with another male even once since 1977 and without regard for partner’s HIV status nor for frequency, safe sex practices, or duration since. Yet if one has sex with an opposite-sex partner who is knowingly HIV-positive, he or she can give again in a year. This is discrimination and it is wrong.
  • Other countries like Sweden, Argentina, Australia and Japan have either revised or completely lifted the deferral period, while Italy, Spain and France screen donors based on risk rather than a blanket ban on a community.
  • The American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, American Association of Blood Banks, American Medical Association, and a coalition of nearly fifty other organizations all support a revision of the ban.

You can use these reasons in combination with your own personal ones, or the form letter below. Please submit a public comment via jerry.holmberg@hhs.gov, and urge that the ban be revised to improve the nation’s health, meet sound scientific practices, and eliminate discrimination. Thanks for helping improve the nation’s health and eliminating another form of discrimination.

Here is a letter summarizing the scientific and social reasons for revising the ban for your convenience. Feel free to copy and paste into an e-mail:

Jerry A. Holmberg, PhD
Executive Secretary
Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability
Office of Public Health and Science
Department of Health and Human Services
1101 Wooton Parkway, Suite 250
Rockville, MD 20852

June 10, 2010

Dear Dr. Holmberg,

I am pleased that the Health and Human Services 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. I strongly urge the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review its policy prohibiting gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) from donating blood.

The FDA’s current blood donor eligibility policies are largely inconsistent, imposing significantly less restrictive deferrals to heterosexual men and women who engage in high-risk sexual behavior, yet banning gay and bisexual men 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 has 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.

I join a growing consensus of voices who have called for reform of the FDA’s donor eligibility policy. Many public health experts, the American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, America’s Blood Centers, and others have supported reforming the policy. Additionally, 18 U.S. Senators, as well as U.S. Representatives, have recently sent letters to the FDA calling for the long-standing policy’s review and modification.

It is both timely and necessary that an exhaustive review of alternative policies is conducted. I encourage Health and Human Services (HHS) and the FDA to act quickly to address our mutual concern for expanding the blood donor pool and ensuring the safety and adequacy of our nation’s blood supply.

Sincerely,

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News

A Conservative Serves Up a Grassroots Fix for Trumpism

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11 hours ago

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November 17, 2025

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A conservative political operative turned commentator and journalist has a grassroots prescription for what she believes ails conservatism in the age of Trump — a “cure” for Trumpism.

Sarah Isgur worked on campaigns for Mitt Romney and Carly Fiorina, served as a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is now an editor at The Dispatch, a conservative news site.

In an interview with The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, Isgur outlined some suggestions for everyday Americans who may identify as conservative — or who want to make changes.

READ MORE: Prominent Conservative Quits Heritage Over Tucker Defense as Trump Backs Carlson

Isgur “lays out her dream for a return to a small-government ethos and constrained presidential power,” which includes her belief that government can’t fix everything. She also believes there should be no independent federal agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Trade Commission, and Congress needs to take more control.

“It’s not that we’re always going to agree on everything,” Isgur added. “That’s never been the American way. My God, we’re connected by nothing — not race, not creed, not religion. This is what we do, though, is that we say we’re going to, first of all, have decisions made at the most local level so that the person making that decision is most responsive and most represents their own constituents.”

So, how does she think that happens?

Americans, she said, “have to look at what is tending to win these elections and the currents that we’re beating up against.”

When asked, “What advice would you give to people who are deeply dissatisfied with what our political system is delivering and want to do something that’s fundamentally patriotic, which is get involved?” Isgur offered a grassroots answer.

READ MORE: ‘Fight Back!’: Trump Demands GOP Keep the House ‘at All Costs’

“Stop reading political news,” she advised. “Put your phone down. Go talk to your neighbors, check out what they’re doing. Don’t talk about politics, just check on their health. How’s their mom? What are the kids up to? Do you have any cute kid videos to show me?”

She urged Americans to “be radically involved in your neighborhood and your community. And I really mean your smallest community — getting to know the other parents in your kids’ class.”

And, she said, “Vote in primaries.”

“Our elections are increasingly getting decided in primaries and that itself is bad. And the way to fix it is to vote in primaries.”

And register for the party that you want to influence, she suggested.

“I don’t understand people who refuse to register with the other party. It’s not a tattoo. You didn’t sign up for a new religion. Part of the problem is we think of politics as a religion. I’m just signing up in a primary to help pick who that candidate is going to be in the general election. That’s it. That’s the extent of what it means to register for a political party,” Isgur explained.

READ MORE: Trump to Rub Elbows With McDonald’s Owners in Push to Promote ‘Affordability’

 

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Prominent Conservative Quits Heritage Over Tucker Defense as Trump Backs Carlson

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13 hours ago

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November 17, 2025

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The Heritage Foundation, billed as the “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement, has just lost one of the nation’s most prominent conservatives: Princeton Professor Robert P. George. His departure came after the organization’s president, Kevin Roberts, publicly called Tucker Carlson a “close friend” of Heritage — even after the former Fox News host gave a platform to far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes. The split lands at the same moment President Donald Trump extended support to Carlson, despite Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, who is widely seen as promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.

Professor George is a legal scholar who served as the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which opposes same-sex marriage. He was once described as the “this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker.”

“I have resigned from the board of the Heritage Foundation,” George wrote at the National Review on Monday. “I could not remain without a full retraction of the video released by Kevin Roberts, speaking for and in the name of Heritage, on October 30. Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse.”

READ MORE: ‘Fight Back!’: Trump Demands GOP Keep the House ‘at All Costs’

George urged Heritage to uphold “the moral principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the civic principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.”

“I pray that Heritage’s research and advocacy will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is ‘created equal’ and ‘endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.'”

Earlier this month, Professor George, also in the National Review, wrote about his opposition to President Roberts’ statement that Heritage has “no enemies to the right.”

The conservative movement, he wrote, “simply cannot include or accommodate white supremacists or racists of any type, antisemites, eugenicists, or others whose ideologies are incompatible with belief in the inherent and equal dignity of all. As a conservative, I say that there is no place for such people in our movement.”

On Sunday, President Donald Trump was asked about Tucker Carlson’s “friendly” interview with “antisemite” Nick Fuentes.

READ MORE: Trump Aims Treason Allegation at His Former FBI Director in New Online Attack

“What role do you think Tucker Carlson should play in the Republican Party in the conservative movement going forward?” a reporter asked the president.

“Well, I found him to be good,” Trump said of Carlson. “I mean, he said good things about me over the years. And he’s, I think he’s good.”

“We’ve had some good interviews. I did an interview with him. We had 300 million hits. You know that,” Trump added.

The president added, “you can’t tell them who to interview. I mean, if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes — I don’t know much about him — but if he wants to do it, get the word out, let him — you know, people have to decide. Ultimately, people have to decide.”

The Washington Post on Monday described Trump’s remarks as “defending” Carlson.

SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah said Trump’s call to “get the word out” was “deeply, deeply troubling.”

“When leaders are asked about antisemitism,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Monday wrote, “there’s only one responsible answer: denounce it. President Trump’s refusal to condemn Nick Fuentes — an avowed antisemite — or to call out Tucker Carlson for amplifying him is unacceptable and dangerous.”

READ MORE: Trump to Rub Elbows With McDonald’s Owners in Push to Promote ‘Affordability’

 

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‘Fight Back!’: Trump Demands GOP Keep the House ‘at All Costs’

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16 hours ago

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November 17, 2025

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As President Donald Trump faces potential pushback from House Republicans over his stance on the Epstein files, he has reversed course and urged members to vote for their release. But now the president is pushing back — hard — against further defections from his agenda and is demanding that Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives “at all costs.”

In a sharply-worded post on his Truth Social website, President Trump demanded that states support his call for a rare mid-decade redistricting plan, his tool to try to pick up more GOP-held seats in the House.

Recently, Indiana Republicans acknowledged that they did not have the votes to support redistricting, leading Trump to unleash a threat on Monday.

READ MORE: Trump Aims Treason Allegation at His Former FBI Director in New Online Attack

“I will be strongly endorsing against any State Senator or House member from the Great State of Indiana that votes against the Republican Party, and our Nation, by not allowing for Redistricting for Congressional seats in the United States House of Representatives as every other State in our Nation is doing,” Trump alleged. “Republican or Democrat.”

Not all states have decided to redistrict.

“Democrats are trying to steal our seats everywhere,” the president charged, “and we’re not going to let this happen! This all began with the Rigged Census. We must keep the Majority at all costs. Republicans must fight back!”

READ MORE: Trump to Rub Elbows With McDonald’s Owners in Push to Promote ‘Affordability’

The president did not detail specifically what some of those costs might entail. Trump was president in 2020 when the census was conducted.

Trump did speak with Indiana Republican Governor Mike Braun on Monday morning, the governor noted.

“I remain committed to standing with him on the critical issue of passing fair maps in Indiana to ensure the MAGA agenda is successful in Congress,” Braun wrote.

The redistricting push started when Trump urged Texas to redistrict, which he suggested would add five GOP seats for Republicans. California soon undertook plans to do the same, possibly diminishing or neutralizing any potential GOP pickups. But some election and polling experts have said that Hispanic voters are rapidly moving away from the GOP, which could backfire on Republicans in states like Texas.

READ MORE: Democrat Warns How Trump Could Engineer a Path to Stay in Power After 2028

 

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