The Red Cross is partnering with RHA to hold the drive. Monica Stoneking, Great Lakes Region communications manager for the Red Cross, said the Middlebury Model is a type of blood drive that serves as a response by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to a federal ban.

The ban, enforced by the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, prohibits sexually active homosexual men from donating blood anytime during their lives, she said.

“We don’t like that discrimination,” she said. “Obviously, the gay and lesbian communities don’t like that discrimination. We’ve been working with them to incorporate everybody and make everyone feel welcome.”

Stoneking said the ban’s lifelong policy is unfair for homosexual men.

“There’s not enough research to support having that lifetime ban,” she said. “We’re trying to get it as a deferral period like for those that travel to a Malaria-ridden country. We’re trying to lift that so it’s a year deferral.”

Participants for RHA’s blood drive can opt to donate blood for themselves or on behalf of somebody else, RHA spokesperson Emily Tschirhart said.

“They also sign a letter to the FDA stating that they are donating on behalf of this individual,” she said. “The point is to represent that (the FDA is) missing out on a lot of blood that could be donated.”

Stoneking said a petition also will be available for participants to sign.

“There will be sign-up sheets at the drive for those that have been deferred for the male-to-male sex policy for signing a petition to the FDA to lift the ban,” she said. “And they are recruiting others to go donate on their behalf and asking them to sign the petition.”

Tschirhart said because of a 20-year-old ban, blood donation services only receive half as much blood as they could.

“All blood that is donated is screened, and it’s kind of irrelevant to have a blanket ban over everything if they screen it,” she said.
After the drive, Tschirhart said RHA plans to mail the letters against the ban to the FDA.

Along with blood, the drive will be accepting donations of nonperishable food items and clothing to be donated to the MSU Student Food Bank.

Zachary DeRade, a genomics and molecular genetics freshman and a RHA representative for Spectrum, the LGBT caucus for McDonel and Holmes halls, said he heard about the drive through RHA and wanted to participate. The fact it was a Middlebury Model drive only made it more attractive.

“It’s still upsetting that the FDA does discriminate against gay men,” he said. “It’s hard for me to be involved with something and wanting to help so much but being told that I, myself, am not allowed to donate just because, according to the FDA, I engage in high-HIV-risk activity.”