A heart-wrenching story came to light in Iowa today as a teen's organ donation was rejected because of an FDA rule that bans organs from gay donors.
The teen, A.J. Betts, committed suicide last year after being bullied by his peers for his sexual orientation. A.J.'s mother said that her son was outed and experienced extreme, unrelenting bullying from fellow students at his high school for a year and a half before his death. They bullied him for his sexual orientation and for being mixed race, half African-American and half white, as well as having a cleft lip.
"He's different. He doesn't add up to what they're used to," Noah Lahmann, a close friend of A.J.'s, told KCCL.
A.J. made his suicide attempt in July 2013 and died soon after, following hospitalization and life support. He reportedly asked for his organs to be donated to people in need before attempting to take his own life. Unfortunately, the discrimination continued after his death as some of his organs were rejected because the teen was gay. A.J. had placed himself on an organ donation list months before he killed himself.
A.J.'s mother, Sheryl Moore, got a letter recently stating where her son's organs had gone. She learned that his kidney, liver and lungs had gone to needing recipients. His heart went to a 14-year-old boy. However, the letter stated that her son's eyes had been rejected.
"My initial feeling was just very angry because I couldn't understand why my 16-year-old son's eyes couldn't be donated just because he was gay," Moore said to KCCL. Moore is not sure whether her son was sexually active.
The FDA regulations on organ donation states that hospitals should not accept the organs of "men who have had sex with another man in the preceding five years" because of risk for HIV and Hepatitis B. The FDA also will not accept blood donations from men who have sex with other men. Other risk factors for HIV make people ineligible for a time: for example, a straight man who has come into contact with the HIV virus will be banned from donating blood for a year, but a man who has had sex with another man even one time is considered banned for life.
The American Medical Association does not support the FDA's ban on blood from gay donors. AMA board member Dr. William Kobler called the ban "discriminatory" and "not based on sound science" in a statement last year.
