Only the 'good' stuff

With the recent snowfall in eastern North Carolina, the local American Red Cross blood bank is running on a shortage.  (The Red Cross is really always running on a shortage,* so 'a greater shortage than usual' is more apt.)  My mother is a regular donor, and she brought me - a first time donor - with her when she went in last week.

Alas, I failed the eligibility requirements, even though I had great vitals and a high iron level.  Turns out New York doesn't have state health regulations for their tattoo studios - they have local regulations and have to meet health codes, but no state official goes around and accredits them, which is the criteria for Red Cross donations.  So I can't give blood until August.

But the point is not that I may have under-researched state regulations before I got inked again (learn from me, all you kids out there!), but that I had my first personal encounter with the eligibility requirements.  And I could not help but set my analysis upon them, as I am inclined to do.  Here is how it goes.  Before giving, they prick your finger to test your iron, take your blood pressure, your pulse, and temperature.  They ask you some general health questions to assure themselves that you are generally healthy.  Then they leave you alone with a computer to answer about a dozen questions in private.  The presumption is that way you'll be honest and be more likely to admit to any embarrassing likelihood of having 'bad' blood.  And what do I mean by 'bad' blood?

These questions can roughly be summarized as the following five themes:

1) "Is your blood messed up because you have some kind of illness or disease?"  
This is hepatitis, mostly, or HIV/AIDs, although it also includes things like blood-related cancers and tuberculosis.  There is also a year long waiting period after you've completed treatment for certain STDs, like syphilis or gonorrhea.

2) "Might your blood be messed up because you sleep with someone who has some kind of illness, or take money for sleeping with anyone who has God knows what, or because you've been to jail?"  
Basically, if you've slept with someone who has hepatitis or has tested positive for HIV/AIDs.  You are also considered at risk for HIV/AIDs risk if you've ever taken any form of payment for sex since 1977.  If you've been jailed for more than three days, you are ineligible for a year because of the risk of hepatitis exposure.

3) "Might your blood be messed up because you are taking legal or illegal drugs?"  
In terms of legal drugs, this could be anything from a recent aspirin or immunization to antibiotics or bovine insulin.  As for illegal drugs, if you've ever shot up (heroin, steroids, etc.), you are ineligible to donate, ever.  This is because of the risk of hepatitis and HIV transmission through shared needles or anything not doctor-proscribed.

4) "Might your blood be messed up because you are a gay man who practices gayness?"  
The ARC considers all those who are deemed at risk for HIV/AIDs ineligible for blood donation.  If you are "a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977," you are considered as "having done something that puts you at risk" for HIV/AIDs.  The same is true if you are a woman who has had sexual contact with another man who had sexual contact with another man.  (Did you follow that?  If you're a woman who has had a sexual relationship with a man who sleeps with men, then you are considered to have put yourself at risk for HIV/AIDs, too.)

5) "Might your blood be messed up because you are African, have ever been to Africa, or have ever slept with someone who is in any way connected to Africa?"
I'm being harsh.  It's not all of Africa, just 8 western African countries where there is a rare strain of HIV that is not easily detected.  In the case of malaria, however, it's pretty much all of Africa.  Actually, there is a nice yellow and red band that sweeps across the entire Global South, marking highly infected regions, and if you've lived in any of them, you have to wait three years before being eligible to donate.  Now, the United Kingdom isn't completely spared, as the risk of mad cow disease makes anyone who has spent more than three months in any UK nation since 1980 ineligible to donate as well.  Iraq also requires a year long waiting period.

I don't want to make light of the importance of regulating blood donations.  Believe me when I say I understand why many of these regulations are in place, and I want those who need blood to receive the purest, healthiest blood we can offer.  I cannot overemphasize that truth.

It does strike me, however, that donating blood is a reminder of our place on various hierarchies.  It reinforces what is 'good' blood and what is 'bad' or 'tainted' blood, where is the right place to be from and where is the wrong place, what is the appropriate sex to have and what is the dangerous, what are the correct ways to live and what are the perverse.  If you've done it all correctly, then your blood is welcomed.  If you've made some mistakes - or worse, if you are a mistake, or if a legacy of imperial depravity has made it so that you will be forever marked as a mistake - then your blood is not.

More than that, though, is that to be able to give blood suggests something about your structural position and probability of avoiding mistakes (making them, being them, or being in any way connected to people who make mistakes or are deemed mistakes) entirely.  As I looked around the room of sweet locals sitting patiently as their packs filled with blood, I thought about how donating blood could be considered a public way of saying "Yep, I'm privileged!"  I am heterosexual and I only sleep with heterosexuals.  I have never had to prostitute myself to survive.  I have great health insurance, so all my drugs are legal.  I have easy and affordable access to condoms.  I've never spent any considerable duration of time seeing any part of the Global South.  I've only ever been to the UK for six weeks one summer to study Shakespeare (come on, I know I'm not the only one!).  I've never experienced any life-long, blood-related illness, probably because I am of a class position in which I can avoid the structural circumstances that track me into unprotected sex, intravenous drug use, incarceration, and a higher risk of certain diseases.

I know it's not as simple as that.  Nothing is ever as simple as that.  But given these questions that deem you "in" or "out,"  it does say something about us having the ability to give blood.  It says we have privilege.  We might not be privileged through and through, but we do have some privilege; that much is clear.

And do you know what else it says?  It says we are using that privilege for good.  Even if we have not made mistakes or are not considered mistakes, we will give our blood to those who have (although I have to add that our blood will probably be differentially distributed to others like us who have the resources for it and access to it).  After the standards we've set, it's the least we can do.

*For information about how you can give blood, see the American Red Cross website.