In the meantime, blood is urgently needed in Southern Colorado, you can head to their website for more.
#Can gay men donate blood usa free
Those who donated blood were treated to free ice cream from The Meltdown, along with loyalty cards from two other local businesses, Kangaroo Coffee and The Carter Payne. UCHealth and Vitalant hosted a blood drive on Tuesday from 11:00 a.m. Most blood donation sites say they are just following the FDA rules. "Why can't we lift a restriction that harms people anyway so we can get the best and most blood to combat this shortage," said Smith. Smith says the FDA rule restricting gay and bisexual men from donating blood if they had sex with men within the last three months is just unfair. Current Food and Drug Administration policy allows for gay and bisexual men to donate blood 3 months after their most recent sexual contact with another man. The CDC does require all donated blood to be tested for infectious diseases like HIV or Hepatitis C. "I think that the most important thing to recognize is that they do test all of the blood when blood is donated and so policies that discriminate against a certain population of people are really just about discrimination at this point," said Alissa Smith with Inside Out Youth Services. With the covid pandemic greatly limiting blood donations for the last two years, advocates say it's time for a change. "The only thing we ask is that if you are experiencing symptoms that you wait two weeks before trying to donate but if you've had covid, if you haven't, if you are vaccinated or not, you are still eligible to donate," said Obarski.īut that's not the case for gay or bisexual men.
It's a shortage many blood donation centers are dealing with, but even those who've had covid can donate blood.