After giving blood at the University of Nevada, Reno on Monday, Will Sankuer walked away with a bright green bandage on his arm and a rainbow ribbon on his sweatshirt. The 24-year old journalism major was giving blood in the place of a gay friend who could not.

“I think it is ridiculous that gay men cannot give blood,” Sankuer said. “I think they (blood collectors) are missing out on a big part of the population.”

Since 1983, the Food and Drug Administration has set up criteria for who can donate blood. Due to a risk of HIV, gay men cannot.

So, as the university's annual blood drive with United Blood Services began Monday, Matthew Embrey, 25, and treasurer of the Queer Student Union, was out front, asking for awareness.

"This seems like the most appropriate way to combat ... the ignorance," Embrey said.

The Queer Student Union will be handing out rainbow ribbons and pins to those willing to “adopt” a gay member of their club and give blood in his place.

“It is unfair… but we want things to go peacefully in a good direction,” Embrey said of the club’s demonstration.

The university event, which will continue until Friday, is one of the top 10 collecting events with United Blood Services, according to Steve Thomas, the organization’s donor recruitment director. The university hosts three blood drive events annually and the events contribute about 1,000 units to United Blood Services’ annual total.

According to QSU spokesman David White, the club’s list serve contains 212 names and the weekly meetings draw about 60 people.

The FDA’s current blood donation deferral policy is that men who have had sex with other men at any time since 1977, the beginning of the U.S. AIDS epidemic, are not eligible to donate blood.

“A history of male-to-male sex is associated with an increased risk for the presence of and transmission of certain infectious diseases, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS,” the FDA’s policy statement reads. “The policy is intended to protect all people who receive blood transfusions from an increased risk of exposure to potentially infected blood and blood products.”

All blood collection in the United States is governed by the FDA’s rules.

“We write our own SOPs (standard operating procedures) but it is based on what the FDA tells us,” said Mary Meeker, donor care director for United Blood Services.

The rule also extends beyond U.S. borders. Male homosexuals cannot give blood in European Union countries either.

“We want people to be aware,” White said.

Although FDA representatives said that the administration is always considering new information, the policy is not likely to be reversed any time soon.

“Present assessment is that currently available scientific data do not support a change in its MSM (men having sex with men) deferral policy,” FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said.

However, members of the QSU are waiting for the day when the FDA will repeal its rule.

As he stood outside the university’s student union blood drive, Embrey pointed to a poster board display of 25 gay club members who could not give blood.

“I think that it is unfair that they cannot give blood based on faulty statistics,” Embrey said.

According to Embry, the data that supports the FDA’s edict is flawed, extrapolating rules for the nation as a whole based on a small and insufficient testing sample.

The study, done by the FDA, concluded that men who have had sex with other men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence level 60 times higher than the general population and 800 times higher than first-time blood donors.

“The FDA also defers (or does not allow) other donors for a variety of risk factors for transfusion-transmitted diseases based on medical conditions, geographical exposures, and behavior,” Cruzan said. “For Example, people who have traveled or resided in areas of high malaria or variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease risk and injecting drug users.”

The policy is also adopted by the American Red Cross, which has also studied the relation of HIV to the gay population, along with United Blood Services.