Friday, December 4, 2009

African? We Don't Need Your Blood!

We've had a Red Cross truck parked on campus all day today. People were encouraged to come by and donate blood, which, of course, is a great initiative per se. But what happened to my colleague Kola, who is our Fulbright scholar from Nigeria, is not so great.
As you can discover from his most recent post, Kola was denied the opportunity to donate blood simply because of his place of origin. For some reason, being from Nigeria or even having sexual relations with a Nigerian disqualifies you from giving blood in the US. As Kola discovered, this happens because in some bigoted minds Nigeria is firmly linked to the HIV.
So is it true that a Nigerian is more likely to be HIV positive than an American? Here are some statistics: "In Nigeria, an estimated 3.1 percent of adults between ages 15-49 are living with HIV and AIDS." (More information here.) In the US the percentage of people infected with HIV is actually very similar: "In March 2009 Washington DC reported an HIV prevalence of at least 3% among people over 12 years - similar to rates in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa." (More information here.) Actually, as I was walking past the blood bank I heard two American students talking about donating blood. They both said that it was a good idea but they couldn't participate right now because neither of them could guarantee that they were not HIV positive.
My colleague was told that the blood bank's refusal to accept his blood has to do with FDA requirements. It's easy to blame such things on the FDA. When we consider the matter, however, it becomes obvious that the only reason for anybody to be be more suspicious of Nigerian blood than of American blood is racism.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Though I'm not denying racism as the cause (hard to prove a negative), the more likely reason is that the CDC is worried about HIV Group O, which is often undetectable by most HIV tests. That strain is most frequently found in a few African countries -- not all Africans are prohibited from donating: explanation.

And more info about HIV Group O.

-Mike

Anonymous said...

Yes, how dare we worry about transmitting incurable diseases to innocent people. Catering to the PC crowd is far more important than risking the spread of disease.

/sarcasm

Clarissa said...

Have you even read the post before demonstrating your misplaced sarcasm? The probability that an American will transmit AIDS is THE SAME as the probability an African would transmit it.

I suggest you learn to read, it is a useful skill to possess.

Anonymous said...

It was extremely interesting for me to read the post. Thanks for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. BTW, why don't you change design :).

KT said...

I'm coming back to this post today because someone clicked to my blog from here. I still think about the incident every time I pass by the Red Cross truck on campus.

Thanks for writing about it.