homosexual's can't donate blood

Somehow this was mentioned in class one day and I was surprised. I possibly could have heard of this before but when it was said in class I was just like wow. I wanted to know why this was, what risks could arise from a homosexuals blood? Also, why is it just homosexuals who can't donate blood? What makes blood drives want to stay away from acquiring their blood?

Well basically from what I found is that the reason homosexuals could not donate blood is because the HIV virus is prominent among male homosexuals. They believed that if they were to take blood from a homosexual male then there would be a good chance that they would also be extracting the HIV virus in the blood, therefore putting blood recipients in high risk of acquiring the virus as well.

So in March 2006, the Red Cross came up with a way to detect the HIV virus in blood if it had been up to 10 days since they had acquired it. Therefore it would be possible for a homosexual male to donate blood because they could then detect the HIV virus if it was present. If not then the blood is perfectly good. Though this did not change anything because the FDA still says that until significant evidence is shown that no one would ever get HIV through a blood transfusion again then they would possibly consider this method. They claim that though it is very effective, it is not 100% accurate and they dont want to take the risk.