Well, another life saver in short supply these days is donated blood as thousands of blood drives across the country now canceled because of social distancing thistles highlighted.

An FDA ruled that critics, including several senators who sent a letter this week called discriminatory ah, ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men who have had sex in the past year.

We're joined now by Sara Kate Ellis, the president of LGBT Rights Group.

Glad thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Could you tell us more about this band and why the FDA says that it's necessary, But this is a band that was instituted during the AIDS crisis so over three decades ago.

It's outdated because many, many medical experts the American Medical Association, the American Red Cross, all say that it is okay for gay and bisexual men to donate blood.

So where the band stands in 2014 what happened was they lifted the band a little bit, so it was.

If you ever had sex with men, you could never give blood in 2014 they changed it to if you had sex with a man in the past 12 months, but current testing allows us everyone who donates blood is tested for HIV, so this is outdated and it's stigmatized with gay and bisexual men.

We'll explain why you say this rule doesn't make blood recipients safer.

Can you repeat that again?

I couldn't hear you sure explain why you say that this rule doesn't make blood recipients safer because the test that we have today can detect HIV when anybody who anybody who donates blood is tested for many, many things, that blood is is whole hell and tested for HIV, for syphilis, for many different issues that could be in the blood.

And so the eight gay or bisexual men are no different than heterosexual men or women or anyone else who could be carrying HIV.

It will be detected in the testing.

You talked about the stigma that this creates.

Elaborate on that a little bit, Yeah, Thio.

You know, this has always been a challenge for the gay community, especially for gay and bisexual men, and I think that what this does is just reinforce the notion that that there's something wrong with being gay or being bisexual and that is not a good thing, especially when medical medicine has far surpassed that notion.

And so this keeps that alive, that there's something wrong with being gay or there's something wrong with being bisexual.

And there's now a petition calling for the reversal of that band.

What prompted this?

So when we saw the surgeon general on one of the oppressors talking about, we need donations.

The Williams Institute did a study a couple of years ago, and what they determined was that we would just 600,000 more pints of blood, meaning we would We would be able to save over 1,000,000 more people if this ban was lifted.

So this ban is hurting American people in this country.

And I think that especially in the middle of a medical emergency and a crisis, a pandemic that we're all experiencing, why we woke, why we would keep stigmatize medical advice that doesn't exist anymore.

That doesn't that's not relevant anymore and hurt people who need help.

Right now, it seems unbelievable.

And so we called on the FDA to finally, once and for all lift the ban and within a couple of days have 10,000 signatures on that Sam Smith, the famous singer, signed on.

There are many people who are speaking out about this.

In addition, I'm Senator Ductwork, Tammy Duckworth's, and Senator Warren and Senator Sanders.

Kamala, Senator Harris and Senator Booker all signed a letter that Duckworth's started that sent to lift the ban.

So in the middle of a pandemic, when we need blood and this is going to become more and more of an issue in the next couple of weeks, then we should be lifting this ban and moving this forward.

Are you hopeful that you'll see those changes?

And how quickly could they take effect?

You know, I don't know exactly the trajectory on that, but I would imagine it could happen pretty quickly when they change it in 2014.

It seemingly felt like overnight we went from You could never give blood to.

Now, if you if you haven't had sex in a year, you can give blood.

All right.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Sara.

Kate, we appreciate your time.

I wouldn't let you know also that we did reach out to the FDA for comment on this story, but have not yet received a response back.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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