 "Photo: Drew Mendoza/The Daily Gamecock")
San Jose State University suspended campus blood drives in January due to a Food and Drug Administration blood deferral policy that affects gay men, said Pat Harris, the head of media relations for the California school.
In a letter written by Don Kassing, the university's president, to the SJSU community, he said the suspension was made because the policy violated the university's non-discrimination policy.
Harris said the issue was first looked at when an employee filed a complaint with the school. She said students are still encouraged to donate blood off campus.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, five to seven percent of American men claim to be men who have sex with men, or MSM.
The FDA policy says that any man who has had sex with another man, even once, since 1977, cannot donate blood because of their increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and other infections that may be transmitted through transfusion.
Owen McKagen, president of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Alliance at USC, said the organization believes the regulation also directly violates USC's non-discrimination policy, which in addition to protecting many other issues, protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
"I think it is extremely ignorant of the university to allow such blatant discrimination on campus," McKagen said.
McKagen said he doesn't want USC to suspend all blood drives, but that he does encourage the university to put pressure on the FDA and American Red Cross to change the policy.
According to McKagen, if anyone were to claim that the FDA regulation defied the non-discrimination policy, USC administration would be forced to take action.
According to the American Red Cross of Columbia, the blood from every donation is tested for HIV and hepatitis B as well as many other infections.
"In addition to the blood that is taken for donation, a tube sample is collected and sent for testing," said Rhonda O'Banion, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross of Columbia. "All blood donations are tested."
The FDA claims that tests fail to detect less than one in a million HIV infected donors. For this reason, the policy was reinstated in May 2007.
O'Banion said that the American Red Cross of Columbia has no control over the restriction placed by the FDA.
"Our top priority is safety of the recipient and of the donor," O'Banion said. "We support any policy that will protect this safety and we believe it is critical to enforce these policies fairly."
According to McKagen, the group that HIV is spreading fastest in over the past decade is African American women.
"HIV is no longer spreading the fastest among gay men, making this policy even more offensive," McKagen said. "If they are going to place these kinds of restrictions on one group, they should consider all groups with high rates of HIV."
Harris said it was important for young adults to be giving blood.
"The FDA is causing college-age kids to loose confidence, and we need our young adults." Harris said.
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