Like his brother and many of his mother’s friends and colleagues, Dij wanted to help and offered to donate some of his blood. However, he was told he couldn’t – because he is gay.
Now Dij and a growing number of campaigners and pressure groups are questioning the law banning gay men from donating blood.
Last month, Sweden became the latest country to lift the ban, and pressure on the issue is growing in the UK ahead of a meeting this month of the body that advises the Government on blood safety. The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs will be reviewing the current data on the issue and will report back to the Government next year.
The review is certainly good news, says Dij, who is 21 and a student at Glasgow University, because he would love to be able to give blood. “Anybody who has got a heart would want to help,” he says. “And it’s especially poignant when it’s a member of your own family. You see all these adverts on the telly saying ‘It’s you they’re talking to’. I would love to, but you know what? I can’t – you don’t want my blood.”
Under the law as it stands, men who have had sex with men are banned on the grounds that allowing them would increase the risk of infections such as HIV, according to the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service. Dij did not know about this ban when he first went to donate.
“I went along to my local clinic on my 17th birthday. I really wanted to give blood. After I’d handed in my questionnaire, I was very sensitively taken to the side by the nurse who said: ‘I’m really sorry, we’re really grateful to have you along but unfortunately because you have engaged in activity with men, we can’t take your blood’.”
A year later, the issue became much more personal. Dij’s mother Christine Davies was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. Christine, who was 47, was being treated at the Western General in Edinburgh and was doing well until she developed an infection that meant she needed a transfusion.
“They asked my uncles, my brother, all of her work colleagues if they would be willing to see if they would be a match and I said ‘can I be tested?’ It might have been that I was the wrong type of blood group, but my brother and uncle were approached. They knew my sexual orientation. I was in a monogamous, stable relationship so it wasn’t as if I was at high risk of HIV.”
Then on August 14 last year, Christine developed an infection on her brain. She died 10 days later. “My eyes have been opened to this since my mum died,” says Dij. “Maybe gay men do have a right to give blood if they want to. Certainly for me, who was in a monogamous relationship, I think it would have been acceptable in these circumstances.”
The Scottish Blood Transfusion Service says it has a duty to ensure a sufficient supply of the safest possible blood for patients and that it believes there is no scope for a relaxation of the rules without a reduction in blood safety.
A spokeswoman told The Herald: “To minimise the risk of a blood transfusion transmitting an infection to patients, all donations are tested for viruses such as HIV. However, the tests are not completely infallible, particularly in the early stages of infection.
“To reduce this risk, the current policy is to ask those groups who have an increased risk of blood-borne viruses not to donate blood on a temporary or permanent basis. Currently, men who have sex with men are asked not to give blood permanently, with the exclusion resting on specific sexual behaviours, rather than sexuality.”
Campaigners have argued that if it is certain behaviours that are risky, then it is those behaviours that should be excluded rather than all gay men.
The campaign group LGBT Network, which has lobbied the Scottish Parliament on the issue, has pointed out that a man who has unprotected sex with a prostitute or an intravenous drug user can give blood after 12 months. It also notes that in Spain, where the policy was changed in 2003 to allow men who have safe sex to donate, the number of infections from blood transfusions fell.
The Scottish Blood Transfusion Service accepts that the risk of HIV infection from men who have safe sex is small.
Besides, says Dij, risk is part of the system already. “I know someone who had a blood transfusion and contracted hepatitis as a result of it and has liver problems to this day.
“I know at least 100 people who if they changed the rules would walk into the blood donation centre tomorrow and every six months thereafter.
I would do it, too.”
The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs will report some time next year. Members of the public can contribute to the review by emailing SaBTO@dh.gsi.gov.uk.
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