Des Moines Register
03-04-07
ISU's Greek Week yanks its support for blood drive
By LISA ROSSI
REGISTER AMES BUREAU
Ames, Ia. - Organizers of a weeklong celebration by Iowa State University
fraternities and sororities have decided not to participate in a campus blood
drive this week because federal rules prevent some gay men from participating.
Four hundred to 500 blood donations are expected to be lost as a result of the
decision by Greek Week officials, said organizers of the Ames blood drive, the
largest student-run blood drive in Iowa.
That's a significant setback to Iowa blood banks, because blood supplies are
critically short in the state, blood bank officials said last week. Recent winter
storms and the loss of power in large sections of Iowa forced the cancellation of
some blood drives and led to a drop in walk-in donations.
The protest at ISU came after members of a gay and bisexual fraternity in Ames
complained that the federal rules would not allow them to take part in a Greek
Week competition to see which fraternity or sorority had the most donations
during the ISU blood drive.
"We don't want to endorse events that don't give equal opportunity to all of our
members," said ISU senior Courtney Knupp of Washington, Ia., the general cochairwoman who oversees activities during Greek Week, an annual celebration
by fraternities and sororities at ISU.
Under a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule, men who have had sex with
another man since 1977 are ineligible to give blood. The rule was put in place in
1992 to protect the blood supply from HIV.
Gays at ISU contend that the FDA rule is outdated, because new ways to test for
HIV have emerged since the rule was launched.
Members of Delta Lambda Phi, a year-old fraternity for gay and bisexual men,
praised the decision by ISU fraternities and sororities to end the Greek Week
competition during the Ames blood drive.
"We've been trying to raise this issue for a long time," said Warren Blumenfeld,
an ISU professor and Delta Lambda Phi's faculty adviser.
"The Greek Week council has done something remarkable that we in the
community have been trying to do - to raise the issue to the highest level of
public discourse," Blumenfeld said. "They should be applauded for that."
But blood drive organizers said removing the Greek Week support for the blood
drive is the wrong way to make a political point.
"I think it's borderline disgusting," said ISU senior Kevin Newman of Roselle, Ill.,
who is a member of Sigma Pi fraternity. "We've chosen political correctness over
the well-being of people who are seriously injured."
The ISU blood drive starts Monday and runs through Friday. Student organizers
had hoped to get 1,700 usable blood donations out of 2,400 people showing up
to donate or volunteer at the event this year.
In the past, fraternities and sororities, as part of their Greek Week competitions,
were awarded points for participation in the blood drive. The chapter with the
highest participation received a trophy, Newman said.
The Greek Week organizing committee has decided to stop awarding points for
fraternities' and sororities' participation in the blood drive.
Pete Arentson, co-director of the committee that organizes the ISU blood drive,
said he thought the Greek Week decision could reduce the number of blood
donations by 400 to 500 people.
Typically, half of the participants in the blood drive have been members of
fraternities or sororities, said Arentson, a student from Muscatine.
"I would love to see them say, 'Hey, we're not getting points, but we're willing to
give out of the goodness of the heart.' Because we are such an incentive-driven
group, I don't see that happening."
The issue about blood donations by gays goes beyond ISU.
The American Red Cross, along with blood bank organizations, lobbied the FDA
in March for changes to the rule that excludes donations by gays.
The American Red Cross, instead, wants blood banks to ask that men who have
had sex with men in the past year be ineligible to give blood, said Jenna Elliott, a
spokeswoman for the American Red Cross Blood Services, based in Madison,
Wis.
The FDA has kept the rule banning blood donations from men who have had sex
with men since 1977, because there is a finite risk in both the testing of donations
and the removal of contaminated blood from blood bank inventories, FDA
spokeswoman Heidi Rebello said.
Also, research shows that men who have had sex with men are 60 times more
likely to be infected with the AIDS virus than the rest of the general public, she
said.
Reporter Lisa Rossi can be reached at (515) 232-2383 or lrossi@dmreg.com