November 21, 2016

LA's The Hammer and The Williams Institute Present Panel on Blood Equality

READ TIME: 2 MIN.

On November 22, The Hammer Museum and the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law present Blood Equality, a panel conversation organized by artist Jordan Eagles to address the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s discriminatory policy on blood donation from gay and bisexual men, featuring notable experts and advocates for this issue.

This free admission event, presented in advance of World AIDS Day (December 1) and in response to the FDA's new public comment period, takes place at the Hammer Museum on November 22, 2016, and will be live streamed online.

In 1983, in an early response to the AIDS crisis, the FDA implemented a lifetime ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. More than 30 years later, the FDA proposed an updated policy that would allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood, but only if they are celibate for a full year. There is no celibacy requirement for heterosexuals, regardless of their risk for contracting HIV.

A Williams Institute study found that lifting the ban completely could save up to a million lives annually. In July 2016, after the Orlando massacre in which gay and bisexual men were turned away from donating blood; and after much anger from the LGBTQ community over the FDA revised 1-year celibacy policy, the FDA has issued a new public comment period, which ends three days after the Blood Equality program.

The event will be moderated by Mark Joseph Stern, writer from Slate.com, who has been covering the blood ban since 2012.

Expert panelists include:

  • Brad Sears, Associate Dean and Executive Director of the Williams Institute, a think tank on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, dedicated to conducting rigorous, independent research with real-world relevance.

  • Kelsey Louie, CEO of Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), the world's first organization for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy. GMHC has been leading the national fight on this issue.

  • Jim Halloran, President of TwitterOpen. In November 2015, Twitter canceled their corporate/office blood drives because of the inequality for all its employees and to take a stand for equality.

  • Jeffrey Klausner, MD, professor of medicine and public health in the UCLA Division of Infectious Diseases and Department of Epidemiology

    Organized by artist Jordan Eagles, who has been addressing this issue through his collaborative, Blood Mirror project and is a founding collaborator on the national Blood Equality campaign.

    Join the conversation on Twitter and send your questions for the panelists using #AskBloodEquality

    Blood Equality will be held from 7:30-9 p.m. on Tuesday, November 22, at the Billy Wilder Auditorium of the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. Admission is free.

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