The Campaign
What is Project Negative?
Project Negative was conceived in 2009 by Adam Stewart and supported by a group of students at Birmingham City University as a final year university project. It was created in response to the discriminatory Gay and Bi blood ban policy by the National Blood Service. The campaign has personal meaning to Adam Stewart as he found himself a recipient of the discrimination when I could no longer give blood after donating 3 times before. He was not happy with this and wanted to do something about it. This is Project Negative.
NBS Policy
The ban in force by the National Blood Service currently states that ANY man who has EVER once had anal or oral sex with ANY other man cannot give blood FOR LIFE.
More info here from NBS Position Statement: 'Exclusion of Men who have Sex with Men from Blood Donation' 12th March 2009
All their facts are dated 2007 or later......
Facts
Here are the blood stock levels from November 2009 to March 2010 - Over the Christmas period blood was clearly needed, yet the NBS still does not feel the need lift the ban to ensure blood levels are stable. They themselves state that "96% of us rely on the other 4% to give blood. Yet a survey found that 3 in 4 gay and bisexual men would donate if they could potentially leading to 2.3 million extra annual donors....
In 2008, of the 7,298 new HIV diagnoses the greater percentage of these cases were in Ethnic Minorities and Heterosexuals (This statistics are taken from Health Protection Agency ‘HIV in the United Kingdom: 2009 Report’)
Project Negative Policy
We believe that the NBS Policy it is fundamentally discrimination whether the intentions are there or not. Everyone should be judged on whether they can give blood safely based on their individual sexual activity and NOT their sexuality. For this reason the blanket ban should be completely lifted and both gay and bi men should have the same stipulations placed against them for safe blood giving just the same way that heterosexual men and women do. In having this ban in place it reinforces the idea that HIV/AIDS is a 'gay disease' which is just not the case, you cannot have a donation criteria for blood giving based on the perceived risk for an entire group, everyone is an individual and should be treated so.
The ban has either been completely lifted or partially lifted in many countries around the world including, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Hungary, South Africa and New Zealand.
We believe a full lift of the ban should be put in place and we should follow our EU counterparts in Spain and Italy who defer people based on unsafe sexual activity.
