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. 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.
