Social media
giant Twitter has stopped hosting blood drives at their headquarters because of
their policy banning gay men from donating.
Brian Schipper,
Twitter’s Vice President of Human Resources, told
The International Business Times (IBT) that an employee of the company
was turned away from donating due to their sexuality.
Since then,
Twitter has made the decision to stop hosting blood drives until the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) revise their policy and allow gay and bisexual men to
donate.
Mr Schipper
told IBT “We made the choice to take a company stand against some of our
employees being turned away from donating blood and will channel our efforts
into education about this issue until this unnecessary and discriminatory
policy is changed.”
Jim Halloran,
Twitter’s global content manager, also pointed out what he viewed as the
specific problem with the FDA’s current policy.
“These are the
only policies that the FDA has based on a person’s identification and not any
type of risky behavior that they’re engaged in,” he said.
“Twitter took a
very bold stance.”
The ban on
donations begun in the 1980’s during the emergence of HIV.
The
FDA policy states that gay and bisexual men who have had sex with
other men “at any time since 1977 (the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the
United States) are currently deferred as blood donors.
“This is
because [men who have sex with other men] are, as a group, at increased risk
for HIV, hepatitis B and certain other infections that can be transmitted by
transfusion.”
The new
recommendations for deferrals stated that the lifetime ban should be lifted and
a 12 month deferral should be introduced, similar to the UK’s current policy.
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