Gay and bisexual men have been banned from donating blood in the U.S. ever since the first discoveries of HIV, but they plan to offer it anyway in a "gay blood drive."
The blood drive will be spread across the nation at 53 different donation sites where gay men will attempt to donate blood to the Red Cross, USA Today reported.
"It's just ridiculous to me that they don't allow gay men to donate when there are so many in need of blood," Dakerri Barber-Rhone, who is coordinating a Tennessee donation site, said.
The American Medical Association is working to get the FDA to revoke the 1977 policy, and replace it with one that would allow homosexual men to donate as long as they had abstained from sexual contact with another man for a certain period of time, ABC News reported.
Donated blood is routinely rested for HIV and AIDS, so some experts have said the policy is outdated.
"The lifetime ban on blood donation for men who have sex with men is discriminatory and not based on sound science," AMA board member Dr. William Kobler said.
Greg Gross, who works for an Iowa AIDS prevention group, also thinks the ban is unnecessary.
"It's because of this stigma and old belief that most gay men have HIV," he said. The vast majority of gay men are not infected, he said, even though as a whole, their group has a relatively high infection rate.
The American Red Cross issued a statement asking participants in the unofficial blood drive to keep out of their offices so as not to disrupt busy health workers.
The Red Cross website calls for "an emergency need for blood," but they do support a one year deferral instead of ban on gay men donating.
The FDA said the ban is not discriminatory and only based on data.
"FDA's deferral policy is based on the documented increased risk of certain transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, associated with male-to-male sex and is not based on any judgment concerning the donor's sexual orientation," their website stated.
Dr. Emily Blodget, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Southern California doesn't agree gay donors run a much higher risk for spreading the virus.
"Now we've seen, with the testing that we have today, that the blood pool has shown to be very safe without having to go through this regulation. To be honest, (HIV infection) could happen with anyone now. We need to be just as concerned with heterosexuals as homosexuals," she said.
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