Great video from youtuber Tyler Oakley about the Gay and Bi Blood Ban (he talks about it from an American perspective) but the argument is still just as valid.

Whilst this is great progress and step in the right direction to ending the blood ban on Gay and Bisexual men this is still not good enough.

Yes, the new policy would allow some bisexual men that have perhaps settled down with a women for more than 10 years or even “straight” men that had dabbled in the past to give blood which is great (though you have to question whether they were open about this on the blood forms to begin with). It still however openly and actively discriminates against gay men (or those that are sexually active at least once every 10 years…….).

Think of a reaction to a policy where it said that only heterosexual men and women that have not had sex for 10 years can give blood….there would be no donors! We’re sorry NBS, but gay men are sexual and do have sex and we should not be punished for doing so when it is safe and protected.

Now with the Royal College of Nurses giving their full support and backing to the ban being lifted I hope we can progress much further than this superficial change, that on the surface looks like progress and in some ways it is, however it really doesn’t change much in regards to the fight for equality and ending discrimination.

Want some further reading? Peter Tatchel provides a great article and argument for removing the ban

It’s been more than a week since the Department of Health and Human Services’s Advisory Committee on Blood Safety ruled that gay men still can’t donate blood, but that hasn’t silenced debate on the issue.

On a Tuesday segment of The View, guests D.L. Hughley and journalist Thomas Roberts (host of The Advocate On Air) joined regular hosts Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Sherri Shepard in discussing the ruling in light of a recent Slate.com article.

The Slate piece questioned whether other groups with higher incidences of HIV infection should also be banned, citing, for example, that African-American women have an HIV rate nearly 18 times higher than white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control (the FDA, a subagency of HHS, already bars persons born in sub-Saharan Africa from donating blood).

In a unanimous vote, the blood safety advisory committee also called the policy for men who have sex with men (MSM) “suboptimal,” however, and recommended that distinctions be made between low- and high-risk potential gay donors in an upcoming report to the assistant secretary of HHS.

[Via Advocate.com]

Project Negative is in Midlands Zone Magazine again! You can check out the feature by picking up a copy and going to PAGE 7 of the magazine to see what it says. There is also a teaser article on the website here: http://www.midlandszone.co.uk/news.asp?thisId=1240

Alternatively you can download the Current Edition IN FULL Here (Remember PAGE 7): http://www.midlandszone.co.uk/magazine/ZoneMagazine.pdf

Thanks once again to Midlands Zone to showing their support by giving the campaign a voice.

We really on our follower, fans and friends to spread the word about Project Negative, so if you could invite all your friends to our page that would be great!

TO INVITE ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO OUR PAGE

1. Click on the suggest friends link.
2. Once the the page has loaded you should see all of your friends, but they are not selected.
3. At this point, copy and paste the javascript code below into your Web browser’s address bar, making sure that you delete whatever address information is currently in the address bar.
4. Hit “Enter”
5. If all goes well, it selects all of your friends!

Code

javascript:elms=document.getElementById('friends').getElementsByTagName('li');for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === 'object'){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

The Project Negative crew have been very busy little bee’s over the last few weeks, doing their best to spread awareness of the gay and bi blood ban that is currently blanketing Britain.

The Diversity and Wellbeing event was a great success on the 9th of March, with a constant stream of people coming over to visit the Project Negative table. A large amount of people we spoke to on the day had previously been unaware about the blood ban and were shocked about the discrimination behind it.

Our Project Negative home girl Jade Dale was one of the team members at the event and told me “We received a great deal of support from all age groups and backgrounds. It was good to see people ask us about the ban and having strong and positive opinions. It was even surprising to hear a nursing practitioner was unaware of the ban and see her sign. Overall the event was a real success, we hope change is not too far around the corner.”Nice one Jade, looking at the amount of signatures people signed on the blood ban petition there are a lot of people out there against it. But I’m willing to bet we can find more.

The official Project Negative launch went with a bang on Friday the 19th March with scores of party goers turning up wearing red to show their support for the cause. I managed to commandeer Rebekah Douglas, a media student at Birmingham City University, and drag her off the dance floor for a chat. She told me “The launch is a great way of getting people’s attention and spreading the word about Project Negative. Me and my friends have all signed the petition against the blood ban, this is a great cause and I’m proud to support it.”

Founder and boss man of project negative, Adam Steward agreed with Rebekah and stated that “The event has been a massive success, loads of fun too. We got almost 50 signatures added to the petition tonight! More and more people are starting to hear about Project negative.” But don’t forget that all you internet surfers can sign our online petition too at ipetitions.com It only takes a minute to complete and every signature counts.

Some of the comments written by supporters alongside their signatures on the blood ban petition have really touched the team members here at Project Negative head quarters. April Saunders signed the online petition from half way across the world in Sydney, Australia. She commented “It’s about equal rights and anti-discrimination.” Another online petition signer was Ashley from across the pond in Arvada, USA, wrote “Shameful. I feel anybody who is gracious enough to donate blood should be allowed to do so.” A more local signer is Helen Jones from Wolverhampton and she stated “All those people who need blood are suffering un-necessarily over a load of bigoted outdated views.”

Also massive, huge thanks to all the support from Project Negative’s Facebook fans. The group has reached an impressive 1,116 followers! Here’s a big shout out to one of our online friends, Helen Jones, she wrote “That’s disgusting, they can’t be that desperate for blood supplies then can they? They’re always begging on the telly!!!! Everyone should be treated the same regardless.” You tell it how it is girlfriend, thank you for taking the time to show your support for our cause.

To help spread awareness of the gay and bi blood ban add your friends to our group, visit our blog and sign the online petition. From the 1^st of April you will also be able to view Project negative’s very own grand spanking new website. Look out for news and details of our next up and coming events.

By Kimberley Gammon

“This could potentially lead to 2.3 million extra annual donors. Last year, 1.6 million people donated blood up to three times”