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He attempted to donate at a local blood bank, believing he was eligible under the new guidelines, but was turned away after revealing his sexual history. But at the end of it, they sent me home."Īn NYBC staffer denied that a potential donor would be asked if he were gay, saying the donor would instead be asked about sexual activity with another man during the past 12 months.īrandon Gunther, 24, of Sacramento, California, had a similar experience. "I genuinely want to be able to contribute to help somebody and right now they're basically putting out messages that they need blood that there's shortage of blood. In an exchange that Estok recorded on his phone, the NYBC staff explained to him that they had not yet implemented the FDA's new guidelines and that the process was "complicated." Estok was forced to go home without donating plasma. blood banks belong has not yet gotten approval for an important document from the FDA.
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It's also because a trade group to which nearly all U.S. Both the Red Cross and America's Blood Centers, which together represent 800 banks nationwide, told NBC News they haven't been able to accept donations.Įstok and other gay men who have tried to give blood since April 2 have been unable to do so because many blood donation centers have not yet trained staffers or updated their computer systems to accommodate the new rule. hospitals and a desire to get plasma with antibodies from COVID-19 survivors. NBC News found that despite the rule change hundreds of the nation’s blood centers are still unable to accept blood from gay men, even though there's a desperate need for blood at U.S. I've been through a screening process that tells me I'm a potential candidate to help somebody else and now I'm being told I can't." "I've been through a month of hell with this virus. He said he was turned away after revealing he was gay. Within days, Estok tried to donate blood plasma for a test program in New York City that treats severely ill COVID-19 patients with plasma from patients who have developed antibodies and recovered from the disease. After the Food and Drug Administration changed the rules for blood donations from gay and bisexual men earlier this month, coronavirus survivor Lukus Estok saw an opportunity to help other patients recover from the disease.įor years, the FDA has restricted men who have had sex with men in the preceding year from donating blood, but loosened its rules on April 2 as a way to address a sharp drop in donors during the coronavirus outbreak.