Some Northern California colleges banning campus blood drives because of FDA's policy barring MSM

Jun 17 2008

Some colleges in Northern California have banned campus blood drives, saying that FDA's lifetime ban on donations from men who have had sex with men violates the schools' nondiscrimination policies, NPR's "All Things Considered" reports.

FDA in a statement maintained that lifting the ban on donations from MSM could increase the spread of HIV through blood donations because of the group's increased risk for the virus. In addition, blood bank officials have said that ending campus blood drives could compromise the banks' ability to maintain adequate supplies. Some health care advocates also maintain that FDA's policy is justified.

The segment includes comments from Cathy Bryan of Works With Blood Collection, Northern California; Rick Luttman, 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 the University of California-Berkeley (Varney, "All Things Considered," NPR, 6/11).