Recently, the Houstonian printed a story submitted from the U-wire with a headline that stated, ‘Washington State University blood center ban gay men from donating”; this is not true. It is not any particular blood center that bans any group of people from donating blood. It is the FDA that establishes these regulations and I know this because I have been banned for life.What is my great crime against society, you might ask. Why is my blood not good for the masses and the answer: my husband is from Nigeria. The regulation is stated something like this, “If you were born in, lived i, or had sexual contact with someone who has spent a total of six months or more in Africa since 1977 to present – you can not donate.” This is from the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center’s Web site. There are many more places you could not have lived or visited outside of the United States that could ban you including Great Britain and France, as these places give you a higher risk of Mad Cow Disease. Of course, the list is longer than I am listing here, but my anger stems from my own banning. I am apparently at a higher risk for having HIV, never mind the fact that I have been married for three years and tested negative for HIV. My husband is African and that is enough to ban me for life. Right now our blood banks are low and there is a high need for blood, but not for mine. How can our blood banks be at an all-time low and the FDA walk around handing banned for life tickets like it is no big deal? Entire continents being banned is so insanely crazy though that I can hardly believe it. I mean, if we wanted to be honest, I would be willing to bet that San Francisco and New York have a higher concentration of AIDS cases, but I don’t see the FDA making any effort to ban anyone who has visited or had sexual contact with anyone from either of these places from giving blood.Then there is the whole case of what about the tests blood is given? If I am testing negative for HIV, then what’s the problem? The nurse said that anyone could test negative and still carry the disease well that makes me feel so safe. If I had lied, as I am sure many people do, then I could have donated. So, what is there to really protect you, and the answer is absolutely nothing. That same nurse even told me that if she were in a car accident and had to take blood she would rather die than take the blood, because there is no guarantee. And on top of all this, when you do receive blood, you have to sign a long waiver on which it is stated that they are not responsible if this blood is tainted with HIV.I am not saying that the FDA should not try and protect us, but they should do so by developing better tests, not banning entire continents. This way when the test is negative, they will know it means just that.When I was banned, it killed me. I thought how could they tell me my blood is not good. When I told my husband about this he was angered and saddened at the same time, and when I told him how much this hurt he just looked at me and said, “Now, you know how I feel everyday.” This statement hurt more than anything. I am white and he is black so he knows alienation I have never known until now. It is an alienation that neither he or I should ever know, I just hope that our government can wise up and see this shameful truth before more people are hurt or, worse yet, die because of it.