"They were so angry with us," said Goelzer. Linda Goelzer, a spokesperson for Carter BloodCare in Dallas, said "tons" of people showed up at their facilities the day after the FDA guidelines were announced, believing they were now eligible to donate. Vials of blood from a recovered COVID-19 patient drawn at a laboratory in New York on March 30, 2020. The blood centers can't just flick a switch and change their rules for donation, they say - making such changes can take months. The rule was changed to sex within the past 12 months in 2015, and then to sex within the past three months on April 2.īlood bank representatives told NBC News the experience has also been frustrating for them, especially since they have been pushing for relaxation of the rules for years. In 1985, as a way to block the transmission of HIV, the FDA blocked all men who had had sex with other men after 1977 from donating blood. A person stands in front of the New York Blood Center on 67th Street in New York on March 22, 2020. blood banks belong has not yet gotten approval for an important document from the FDA. It's also because a trade group to which nearly all U.S. Both the Red Cross and America's Blood Centers, which together represent 800 banks nationwide, told NBC News they haven't been able to accept donations.Įstok and other gay men who have tried to give blood since April 2 have been unable to do so because many blood donation centers have not yet trained staffers or updated their computer systems to accommodate the new rule. hospitals and a desire to get plasma with antibodies from COVID-19 survivors. NBC News found that despite the rule change hundreds of the nation’s blood centers are still unable to accept blood from gay men, even though there's a desperate need for blood at U.S. I've been through a screening process that tells me I'm a potential candidate to help somebody else and now I'm being told I can't." "I've been through a month of hell with this virus.
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He said he was turned away after revealing he was gay. Within days, Estok tried to donate blood plasma for a test program in New York City that treats severely ill COVID-19 patients with plasma from patients who have developed antibodies and recovered from the disease.