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Other screening questions will remain the same -- for everyone. Potential donors will be asked about risk factors including sexual activity -- whether they have had sexual contact with a new partner in the past three months or had anal sex, which would require them to wait three months before donating. The Red Cross said the decision is supported by decades of data collection and assessments, including the ADVANCE study, which was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA approved new rules for blood donation in May that eliminated waiting periods on the basis of sexual orientation...

You might have heard of PFAS, a synthetic chemical found in legacy firefighting foams, non-stick pans, carpets, clothes and stain- or water-resistant materials and paints. PFAS stands for "per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances." These molecules, made up of chains of carbon and fluorine atoms, are nicknamed "forever chemicals" because they don't degrade in our bodies. There is global concern about PFAS because they accumulate in our bodies over time. There was no way to reduce the amount of PFAS found in the body—until now. Our new randomized clinical trial, has found regularly donating blood or plasma can reduce blood PFAS...

I gave blood a couples of months ago. The Red Cross tests your blood for CCP-1984 antibodies. I tested positive. My wife and I had the worst plague of our lives in January of last year (2020). Took weeks to clear out our lungs. She works in the economics department of the local university with almost all Chinese grad students who had just returned from China. I am sure she got it from them and brought it home. We survived it without even seeing a doctor or taking any medications. We survived it just fine, and we are not spring...

In 1951, a 14-year-old Australian boy named James Harrison awoke from a major chest operation...alive, thanks in large part to a vast quantity of transfused blood he had received, his father explained. *** After turning 18, Harrison (began) donating whole blood regularly with the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. Meanwhile, doctors in Australia were struggling to figure out why thousands of births in the country were resulting in miscarriages, stillbirths or brain defects for the babies. The babies, it turned out, were suffering from Haemolytic Disease of the Newborn, or HDN. The condition most often arises when a woman with...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened the door on Tuesday to a change in its blood donor deferral recommendations, which currently prohibit donations from gay men for a year following their last sexual encounter in order to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In December the FDA overturned a 30-year ban on all blood donations from men who have sex with men, saying the change was based on science showing an indefinite ban was not necessary to prevent transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus. The FDA is now signaling it may go further.

Full title: "Revised Recommendations for Reducing the Risk of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Transmission by Blood and Blood Products" My note: Some Democrats in Congress and the mainstream and left-wing media have been pushing for the FDA to lift its ban on sexually active gay men donating blood since the Orlando terrorist attack (the White House responded that the ban will stay). The dozens of "lift the ban" articles published everywhere from Time and the New York Times and Washington Post to Salon and Cosmopolitan have either twisted or omitted facts and issues. This is despite the fact that when the FDA...

...This week we faced a new challenge: mass violence in the very place we felt most comfortable, accepted and secure. After the attack, the city of Orlando and the state of Florida mobilized. Officials called on people in the area to donate blood for those who were injured in the shooting. Thousands of people have reportedly lined up to donate. But some of them — gay and bisexual men — are unable to. As a registered nurse, I know the importance of donated blood... (snip) But many of the people who felt the tragedy most closely can’t offer their help....

The Food and Drug Administration has announced that it's easing restrictions on gay men donating blood, reversing a policy enacted during the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic decades earlier. In a statement released Tuesday, the FDA said easing the ban came after several years of research into the matter. "Following this review, and taking into account the recommendations of advisory committees to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA, the agency will take the necessary steps to recommend a change to the blood donor deferral period for men who have sex with men from indefinite deferral...

Gay men just got a step closer to being able to donate blood. Since 1983, men who have had sex with men anytime since 1977 were barred from donating blood, a policy put in place because of the HIV/AIDs epidemic, which especially ravaged the gay community in its early years. But on Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety voted 16-2 to tweak the ban, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, suggesting instead that men who have had sex with men could give blood, but with a caveat. They’d have to be abstinent for...

My apologies for the vanity, but I figured a rant here might just get this out of my system. I went to Carter Bloodcare today to give my regular blood donation. Those of you who've done this know that there is a bunch of handouts that they make you read through each time that goes over people who cannot give blood. Folks with AIDS are one obvious category, but there are a bunch of others. It will also have a list of medications, that if you are taking will make you ineligible to donate blood. I've given almost 5 gallons...

More than 80 lawmakers have called on the Obama administration to allow gay men to donate blood. The lawmakers say the administration should change what they say is an "outdated" policy. Eighty-two lawmakers in the House and Senate signed on to the letter, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Enzi was the only Republican to sign the letter. They said Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should re-evaluate blood donation criteria that ban gay men from donating blood for life.

After Marshall Duer-Balkind, 30, exited a blood donation center on Friday morning, he held up a long green form as evidence that he had been rejected as a blood donor. On the form Duer-Balkind pointed out that section that disqualified him from being a blood donor because of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration policy that bans men who have sex with men from giving blood. After Duer-Balkind showed the form to two volunteers from the National Gay Blood Drive demonstration, the volunteers pulled out a red ink pad and stamped “Rejected” on his forearm. The stamp was proof that...

German doctors are calling for gay men to be allowed to donate blood. Currently a Europe-wide ban prevents them from doing so, but the German Health Minister said he would welcome a relaxation of the rules. The German Medical Association (BÄK) said that it would do everything “within its means” to remove the blanket ban on men who have sex with men, those with lots of sexual partners and prostitutes, from donating blood. …

It seems that while the practice of bloodletting throughout history had little or no effect on most diseases, and the practice was abandoned in the 19th century, new research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine demonstrates that blood donation has real benefits for obese people with metabolic syndrome. Two sessions of bloodletting were enough to improve blood pressure and markers of cardiovascular disease.

The Heat by Ari Bussel The unbearable heat. 100 people evacuated to hospitals, 36% more than normal. I am not sure what is “normal,” but the forecast is “more of the same” for tomorrow and the next day and then on Thursday, a special treat, “an increase of a few degrees (Celsius).” In Jerusalem everything stood still, as if the heat sat on the ground as the sun boiled from above. I exited a meeting, saw a mirage and escaped to a sanctuary. Now along the “lowlands” from the seashore inland, there is actually a breeze, it is somewhat comfortable...

Backers of a change, including Sen. John Kerry, say the policy is outdated medically. Hemophilia groups want to keep it. Federal health officials announced Friday that they would reexamine a 27-year-old set of restrictions on blood donations by gay men. The restrictions, enacted in the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, impose a lifetime ban on men donating blood if they've had sex with another man at any time since 1977. Changes in the rule have been opposed by hemophilia patient groups. People with hemophilia, a bleeding disorder, are heavy users of blood products, and about...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2007 – The Defense Department is changing its military blood-donation regulations to allow for a wider spectrum of civilian donors. Current department rules only permit blood donations from servicemembers, Defense Department civilians, retirees and their family members, Navy Cmdr. Michael C. Libby, director of the Armed Services Blood Program Office, told American Forces Press Service and Pentagon Channel reporters. The new policy will enable non-Defense Department affiliated civilians to donate blood through the Armed Services Blood Program at collection points located on department or federal property, Libby explained. The policy change, slated to become effective later...

The Food and Drug Administration is considering revising its policy that bars as a blood donor any man who has had sex with another man since 1977, officials said yesterday. The change in policy is being recommended by the American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks and America's Blood Centers, which collect virtually all the blood used for transfusions nationwide. The three groups requested the change at a March 8 workshop the FDA convened to review the latest scientific information about the safety of the blood supply, arguing that current tests and screening methods have improved enough to...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Mary Goedken (GED'-ken) of Monticello, the matriarch of an Iowa family that lost eight people to AIDS, has died. She died on Monday at a Monticello nursing home following a brief illness. She was 91. Goedken's family says she had been in declining health since suffering a stroke in December. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no other family in the U-S is known to have lost more members to AIDS than the Goedkens. Six of her seven sons suffered from hemophilia. One son died of complications from hemophilia in 1971. In the 1980s,...

McGill University Homosexual Activists Shut Down Blood Clinic Protesters told to “lie about your sexual history” MONTREAL, February 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A group of homosexual activists have shut down a Montreal blood donor clinic that was screening out sexually active “gay” men. 10 to15 men showed up at the McGill University blood drive Wednesday, dressed in women’s clothes and waving sex toys. Workers with the Quebec blood agency found an anonymous note posted in men's bathrooms encouraging homosexual donors to lie on their blood donor questionnaire.The note urged the men to "act faggy" and "lie about your sexual...