FEAR FACTOR Student raps federal ban on gay blood donors BY BETH SCHWARTZAPFEL

Aaron Buckley was a senior at Davies High School, in Lincoln, when the Rhode Island Blood Center held a blood drive there. His grandmother’s life had been saved by a blood transfusion, so thinking of her, Buckley stopped in to donate. Over the next year, he repeatedly gave blood at the center’s Promenade Street headquarters until one day he looked closely at the list of questions handed to every donor. After giving an honest answer to the question, "Are you a man who has had sex with another man, even once, since 1977?", Buckley — who now faces a lifetime ban from donation — was escorted from the center.

In 1983, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enacted the regulation barring gay men from donating blood, in an attempt to keep HIV out of the blood supply. In 2000, the FDA revisited the issue, but ultimately maintained the ban. "Back in the day, this could be legitimized," says Buckley, now 18 and a freshman at the Community College of Rhode Island. The original regulation was passed during what he calls "the height of the HIV epidemic. We didn’t understand it. It was known as the gay disease." Now, however, Buckley accuses the Blood Center and the FDA of further restricting an inadequate blood supply with an anachronistic regulation based on discrimination, not science.

Dr. Carolyn Young, vice president and chief medical officer of the Rhode Island Blood Center, says the FDA simply errs on the side of caution. "We always need blood," she says, "but we always need safe blood. It’s always an issue of trying to balance safety with adequacy." Besides, the Rhode Island Blood Center must follow the FDA’s regulations, or it will be shut down. "We can’t just, on our own, make a decision like that," Young says.

Dr. Josiah Rich, an infectious-disease specialist at the Miriam Hospital, agrees with the FDA. "It’s really a public health issue and a numbers issue," he says. "I don’t think it’s a discrimination issue. There is a higher proportion of gay men infected [with HIV] than any other group in the country. It’s a high-risk population and you can’t deny that."

For his part, Buckley has garnered support from state Representative Art Handy (D-Cranston), who, as the lead sponsor on the state’s same-sex marriage bill, is an outspoken proponent of gay rights, as well as David N. Cicilline, the first openly gay mayor of Providence. Buckley plans to request a meeting with the Blood Center’s leadership, and to hold a demonstration outside its headquarters.

For the clamor he hopes to create, Buckley knows that targeting state and local institutions to change a federal regulation will have a limited impact. But, he says, "The point is to raise awareness. I do not believe that Rhode Island can force the FDA to change a law. [But] the Rhode Island General Assembly can stir up quite a ruckus over this if they care to, and I’m hoping they do."