While a cure for the coronavirus is still a ways off, one fairly effective treatment that’s emerged is convalescent plasma therapy, where the blood of a recovered COVID-19 patient — which contains the antibodies that can fight the disease — is donated to a sick person. Young-White spoke with two men who have both recovered from COVID-19 but were barred from donating their blood due to a longstanding FDA ban on gay men doing so.
The ban was instituted during the AIDS crisis, and although the rule was relaxed in 2015, it still mandated that gay men couldn’t donate blood unless they’d abstained from sex for a year . Because of the COVID-19 crisis, the FDABut one of the men Young-White spoke to, Lukus, said that after meeting the abstinence requirement and going through several rounds of screenings, he was turned away. When he went to donate blood in New York City, he was asked why he never had before.
With few other options available until the FDA ends its blood donation policy for gay men, Young-White took it upon himself to help the two men figure out how to pass as straight so they could donate blood. “Your look should kind of say, ‘I’m looking for a girlfriend to shop for me because I can’t shop for myself,'” he cracked.
Why is this still happening? I'm pretty sure your sexual orientation doesn't determine if you have antibodies and platelets and plasma and iron and everything else. It's the same blood. So discriminatory.!
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