A.J. Archer
By A.J. ARCHER on April 7, 2012
Many students attended the “Marrow-thon” for Kajal Patel, a student in the sixth grade at Athens Academy who was in need of a bone marrow transplant.
They had swab samples taken to see if they could be her one-in-20,000 match.
I, however, did not — what’s more, I could not. Certain restrictions on the donation process put limits on who can donate.
Being a gay male, I’ve known that I’m ineligible to give blood, but I only just discovered I’m barred from the bone marrow registry.
In 1985, when the Food and Drug Administration placed a restriction on gay men donating blood, HIV/AIDS was seen as a gay disease.
But now that HIV/AIDS has seen a rise in prominence in the heterosexual community as well, why do these antiquated restrictions still exist?
This girl needed a bone marrow transplant to save her life — it was the embodiment of a life-or-death situation.
Moreover, her odds were steep — thankfully, the Marrow-thon did ultimately find a match. But in a time of dire need of help such as this, and in others, shouldn’t we be expending all of our resources, regardless of sexual history?
With today’s technology, HIV testing can be completed in a matter of minutes and, due to that advancement, all donated blood and marrow is tested before it is placed aside for possible transfusions or transplants.
Given these circumstances, I find it hard to explain why I, with good blood and good intentions, couldn’t try to be Kajal’s one in 20,000.
When the stakes are this high, we should be taking samples from absolutely anyone who’s willing to give them.
But before that can happen, we need to see a dramatic change in the restrictions placed on donation.
Though the donation policy has undergone some revision, some things about it still don’t quite make sense to me.
Under the revision, men who have previously been sexually active with other men but who have not been in sexual contact with another man in the past five years can donate blood.
But if we’re trying to avoid receiving blood that is marred with an incurable disease, what difference does five years make? That’s something that stays with you for life.
The argument, then, becomes more discriminatory than precautionary — there is no gay man who practices safe sex and is more high-risk than a straight man who sleeps around without protection.
So instead of revising the restrictions, I say we lift them — because all of us are susceptible.
— AJ Archer is a sophomore from McDonough majoring in journalism and romance languages
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