Roehampton students' blood donors campaign

Students at Roehampton University have been campaigning in recent weeks for the antiquated and discriminatory ban on gay men being blood donors to be scrapped - a campaign I support.

This is a crazy ban that shouldn't have survived the dawn of the millennium. The NHS blood banks are hardly overwhelmed with donors; and from time to time, especially during the Winter, there are often reports that stocks are perilously low.

The National Blood Service argues that even with screening there is a small risk that infection may get through. But it is unjust and silly to assume that all homosexual blood will be infected while all heterosexual blood is safe; especially given that HIV infection (to name but one) is now proportionally higher in the heterosexual than the gay community.

All I know is that if a relative or friend of mine needed a blood transfusion, the only thing I'd care about was that the blood was safe. Whether it was donated by a man or woman, black or white, gay or straight is utterly immaterial. How the National Blood Service can believe different in this day and age is extraordinary.