SJSU suspends blood drives

San Jose State University President Don Kassing has suspended all campus blood drives because of a longstanding government policy that bars gay men from donating blood.

The policy by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "affecting gay men violates our non-discrimination policy," Kassing said in a lengthy e-mail sent to faculty, staff and students earlier this week.

The issue has cropped up on college campuses across the country, primarily as gay student groups protest blood drives. The American Red Cross and other national organizations that regularly run blood drives have also been pushing the FDA to revise the policy, which has been in place since AIDS first emerged in the United States in the early 1980s. State-of-the-art blood-screening techniques make the lifetime ban unnecessary, the groups say.

"This is not a political issue. We're not bowing to political pressure from some advocacy group," said Larry Carr, SJSU's associate vice president for public affairs. "It's a position based entirely on principle. President Kassing stood up for our non-discrimination policy."

Kassing's order, which takes effect immediately, applies to blood drives arranged by university employees as well as those organized by various student groups. At least two blood drives that were planned for this spring have now been canceled.

Both the spread of the disease and the process by which blood is screened have dramatically evolved in the past 25 years.

In 2005, the largest estimated proportion of HIV/AIDS diagnoses were for men who have had sex with men, followed by adults and youth infected through heterosexual contact, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

But HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is increasingly transmitted between heterosexuals, and women account for more than one-quarter of all new HIV and AIDS diagnoses in the United States.

For his part, Kassing said he recognized the importance of giving blood. "However," he said in his e-mail, "lacking further action by the FDA, we are guided by the clear mandates of our non-discrimination policy. Our hope is that the FDA will revisit its . . . policy in a timely manner and we may soon be able to hold blood drives on this campus again."