Better SAFE than politically correct

Liberals Try in Vein to Change U.S. Blood Ban

Are you willing to risk contracting HIV to prove how tolerant you are? If the FDA repeals its blood bank policy, you may not have a choice. At this morning's HHS hearing in Maryland, liberal activists did their best to persuade the government to overturn its ban on blood donations from homosexuals. Ironically, this latest push happens to coincide with the agency's latest report that the demand for blood donations is not only dropping -- but becoming more selective.

Under rules from the Food and Drug Administration, men who've had sex with other men in the last 25 years are considered too much of a health hazard to give blood. The government created the policy in 1985 after officials discovered that thousands of hemophiliacs were contracting -- and dying from -- HIV/AIDS-infected blood. According to the CDC, men who have sex with other men "accounted for at least half of persons diagnosed with HIV in all but two states."

That doesn't matter to liberal activists, who seem to think Americans should ignore the science and risk exposing people to disease just to make a political point. People who care more about sensitivity than safety argue that the policy is discriminatory. And they're right. If the FDA wants to protect people's health, it has to be selective. The government can't afford to contaminate the blood supply just to validate anyone who engages in homosexual behavior.

As FRC's Peter Sprigg testified earlier today, "there is no 'right' to donate blood." The current policy should only be changed if HHS can prove all of the following: 1) a change is needed to ensure an adequate blood supply; 2) the change would result in a significant increase in the blood supply; 3) a change would result in no added risk to the blood supply; 4) the change would add no additional costs for added or special screening procedures.

In a transfusion environment where recipients assume all of the risk, the FDA should continue focusing on protection -- not political correctness. Even if the new screening can detect virtually all tainted blood, no test is 100% safe. And the government shouldn't be wiling to risk America's blood supply to prove it.