We must right this wrong now and without delay." Continuing to enforce the de facto prohibition on blood donation by sexually active gay and bisexual men does not reflect the best science available. He continued, "As the global pandemic wears on, the integrity and safety of the blood supply in this country must be preserved, strengthened, and maintained. But our work is not yet done."ĭavid said it was "critical to prioritize science and facts over fear and bias," referring to the current COVID-19 pandemic. So it feels more urgent to be able to change the law while it’s still at the front of everyone’s mind, particularly the FDA’s."While this change by the FDA is a step in the right direction, it still bases itself in bias rather than science," Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. Seelbach: Also, the revised guideline that involves a three-month delay after having sex with a man is only temporary, until blood supply increases or coronavirus is eventually not as much of an issue. Now we’re in an actual crisis, we’re in a pandemic, and a lot of LGBTQ men could be saving lives, so it feels good to be working on something so critical.
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One thing I’ve realized is that over the past decade, there has really been a push to change this discriminatory law, but there hasn’t necessarily been an urgent need. What has it been like navigating this process together?īarron: It’s been intense, but it feels good to have a cause to rally for and potentially do something about it. We’re trying to get more politicians to lobby for repealing this FDA rule, and I’ve learned that so many of my non-LGBTQ friends just don’t know about it, so that’s really the first step. I started reaching out to politicians, lawyer friends, journalists in the area, and a lawyer friend of mine recently set me up with CBS News. I hadn’t even gotten as far as attempting, because of what Dillon had already discovered.īarron: I sort of perseverated on it for about a week, thinking, Here’s something that has been based in homophobia, but now we’re in a time where could really be saving a life, and no sane person would say no to that donation. Seelbach: I had heard in general that men who have sex with men were unable to give blood, but it didn’t really register that it was still the law until we tried. Vogue spoke to Barron and Seelbach about their experience facing institutional prejudice while trying to help COVID-19 patients-and how they plan to bring attention to the issue. Getting the FDA to overturn its policies about who can donate plasma is no easy feat, even when many COVID-19 patients are desperately in need of these donations, but Barron isn’t alone in the fight: Andy Cohen, Jaboukie Young-White, and other celebrities have spoken out about the fact that there is no scientific evidence to support the guidelines.
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Until recently, Food and Drug Administration guidelines prohibited men who have sex with men from donating plasma if they’d been sexually active within the last year a recent relaxation of the policy shortened that time period to three months, but enforcing them at all is still seen by many as based more on prejudice than legitimate scientific evidence. Barron finds himself in another unfortunate position: His plasma donation has been denied because he is gay.
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Early on in the pandemic, he and his partner, Eric Seelbach, both tested positive for COVID-19, quarantining together at home until they made a full recovery. Francis Hospital on Chicago’s North Side. Dillon Barron has been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic at St.