A new cheeky PSA wants to see an end to a blood ban that has an effect on an estimated 300,000 Canadian men who have sex with men — not to mention all the people who might be in need of a blood donation.
The video, by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI), points out that when it comes to blood cells, there really isn't such a thing as gay blood.
And no, it doesn't look like this...
Canada's ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men, which goes back over 20 years, was partially lifted in 2013 when Canadian Blood Services (CBS) allowed gay men who had been abstinent for at least five years to donate blood, CCDI notes.
According to CBS, the policy will be reassessed in two to three years.
Around this time last year, CBS also announced the country's supply of blood was critically low — in particular there was a shortage of type O and A blood.
With this in mind, the CCDI suggests there is a "massive untapped pool of potential donors."
"Canada’s ban dates back to the mid 1980s — a time when AIDS was rapidly emerging as a deadly, incurable threat. The gay community was in crisis, and no HIV testing procedures for blood donations were in place yet. At the time, a sweeping ban made sense, but a lot has changed since then," the organization writes in a press release. "Today, every donation given at Canadian Blood Services is thoroughly tested for pathogens, including HIV."
With the hashtag #EndTheBan, the organization has also started a petition.
Watch the video above and remember...
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